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Titmouse's special vehicle carried all that Dick & Co. would need in the near future, and the six boys were setting out on what was destined to be their most famous vacation jaunt. Just before leaving Gridley, Greg Holmes had bought a copy of the "Blade" from a newsboy. Three miles out, the chums enjoyed their first halt.
"I like to do everything I can for him," she explained, as Rorie watched her with an amused smile; "I'd wisp him down if they'd let me." She left the leather panel on Titmouse's back, hung up saddle and bridle, and skipped off to a corn-chest to hunt for apples.
Of these she brought half-a-dozen or so in the skirt of her habit, and then, swinging herself lightly into a comfortable corner of the manger, began to carry out her system of reward for good conduct, with much coquetry on her part and Titmouse's, Rorie watching it all from the empty stall adjoining, his folded inns resting on the top of the partition.
Titmouse's stable was lighted better then the rest. The door stood open, and there was Titmouse, with the neat little quilted doeskin saddle still on his back, waiting to be fed and petted by his young mistress. It was a pretty picture, the old low-ceiled stable, with its wide stalls and roomy loose-boxes and carpet of plaited straw, golden against the deep brown of the woodwork.
She made a lovely picture in this dim light, as she sat in the corner of the old manger, holding a rosy-cheeked apple at a tantalising distance from Titmouse's nose: yet she was perhaps not altogether lovely. She was brilliant rather than absolutely beautiful. The white skin was powdered with freckles.
Again Dick Prescott turned out to be an excellent business man. Dick was most courteous, but he refuted all of Mr. Titmouse's claims for extra payment, in the end even such a money-grubber as Mr. Newbegin Titmouse gave up the effort to extort more money for the use of his wagon than was his due.
"I might make it four for a nickel," coaxed the little man, "if you agree not to pick out the largest apples." "Thank you, but I don't believe I'll eat any apples at all just now," Dick managed to reply, then made his escape in time to avoid laughing in Mr. Titmouse's face. Once out on the street, and knowing that he had some twenty minutes to wait for the next car, Dick strolled slowly along.
This he said with a lively recollection of Titmouse's performances on the journey out, and a lurking dread that he might behave a little worse on the journey home. A lively animal of that kind, going home to his stable, through the uncertain lights and shadows of woodland roads, and driven by such a charioteer as Violet Tempest, was not to be thought of without a shudder.
Vixen ran into the box, and took off Titmouse's bridle, he holding down his head, like a child submitting to be undressed. Then, with many vigorous tugs at straps and buckles, and a good deal of screwing up of her rosy lips in the course of the effort, Vixen took off her pony's saddle.
You remember how the nobleman in Ten Thousand a Year, who had been refused a seat in the Cabinet, sympathized with poor Titmouse's exclamation when, looking at the manifestations of gay life in Hyde-park, and feeling his own absolute exclusion from it, he consigned everything to perdition. All the ballads of Professor Aytoun and Mr.
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