Round the Block | Page 7

he thought proper to punch them in the ribs, and call them a pair of inquisitive puppies, by way of showing how much he was superior to the great human infirmity.
CHAPTER III.
PEEPS.
The uniform row of houses on the other side of a dead waste of snow, to which the attention of the three friends was ardently directed, promised, at first sight, a poor return of instruction and entertainment. The rear view presented one dull stretch of bricks irregularly set even in those houses which displayed imposing fronts of brown stone. The blinds were of a faded green color, and broken. The stoops, the doors opening on them, and the steps leading down to the dirty, sodden snow, had a generic look of cheapness and frailty. "Whatever the censorious critic might say of the front, he could not charge the rear with false pretences; for there was apparent, all over it, an utter indifference to the opinions of mankind. Perhaps because the owners of the houses did not expect mankind to study their property from that point of view.
"Say!" was Mr. Fayette Overtop's first remark, after a moment's observation; "do not those rustic fences on the roofs remind you of the sweet, fresh country in summer time?" Mr. Overtop alluded to the barriers which are erected to keep people from getting into each other's houses, and which are scaled not without difficulty even by cats.
Neither of his friends answering this remark except by a quiet, incredulous smile, Overtop continued, a little pettishly:
"And you really mean to tell me that that pastoral object, happily introduced on the roofs of houses, does not recall the green fields, daisies, babbling brooks, and cloudless skies of early boyhood? Humbug!" The speaker flattened his nose still more against the glass by way of emphasis.
"You look for beauties among the chimney pots, while I search for them in back-parlor windows," said Matthew Maltboy. "Observe where I throw my eye now."
Mr. Maltboy threw his eye toward a house near the middle of the block. His companions followed it, and saw a tall girl with prodigious skirts standing at a window, and looking, as they thought, at them. The view which she obtained was evidently not satisfactory, for with her handkerchief she wiped off the moisture from several of the panes; and, when the glass was clear to her liking, shook out the folds of her dress, and peered forth again, this time more decidedly, at the window occupied by the three friends. Her use of the handkerchief was not lost upon Maltboy, who straightway pulled out his extensive cambric, and polished up their window too. This improvement of the medium of vision on both sides, enabled the three friends to form some idea of the tall girl's personal charms. Her figure was straight; her hair was black; her eyes were brilliant; her complexion was healthy; she exhibited jewelry in her ears, on her neck, her bosom, her wrists, and her fingers; her dress gave her a great deal of trouble, as she leaned forward to look out.
"Charming, is she not?" said Maltboy.
"Hard to say, at this distance," returned Overtop, who, feeling neglected in the matter of the rustic fence, was controversially disposed.
"You may find it so," said Maltboy; "but as for me, the flash of her eyes--there, now, for instance!--is convincing enough."
"Perhaps you have seen her before," remarked Marcus Wilkeson.
"Perhaps," was that gentleman's answer, implying, by his accent and accompanying wink, that he had seen her repeatedly.
"And said nothing about her to us, you inveterate humbug," added Marcus.
Mr. Maltboy felt the compliment conveyed in the word "humbug"--as most people do when that accusation of shrewdness and deep dissembling is brought against them--and smiled.
"I confess," he replied, as he polished the window simultaneously with the performance of that process across the way, "I confess I have noticed her several times; but what was the use of mentioning it to a pair of woman haters like you?"
His two companions laughed pleasantly, thereby expressing their gratification at the return compliment involved in the phrase "woman haters."
"You are such dull fellows now," continued Maltboy, "that perhaps you will say this fair stranger is not looking at us; that she does not desire to be seen by us--that is, by me; and that her rubbing of the window with a handkerchief is not a signal which she expects to be answered."
"We say nothing," replied the disputatious Overtop. "We only wait for proof. It is easy to find out whether a signal is meant or not. Rub the window now."
Maltboy did so, concluding the act with an unmistakable flourish of the handkerchief. Whereupon the tall girl averted her face, pulled down the curtain, and eclipsed herself.
Wilkeson and Overtop laughed, and, with a common impulse, punched Maltboy triumphantly in the ribs--a friendly salute that was