performed an extensive
operation. One would have thought him anxious to get rid of as much as
possible of his abominable sandy-colored hair. Quite the contrary! Every
hair of his spreading whiskers was sacred from the touch of steel; and a
bushy crop of hair stretched underneath his chin, coming curled out on
each side of it, above his stock, like two little horns or tusks. An
imperial--_i. e._ a dirt-colored tuft of hair, permitted to grow
perpendicularly down the under-lip of puppies--and a pair of promising
mustaches, poor Mr. Titmouse had been compelled to sacrifice some time
before, to the tyrannical whimsies of his vulgar employer, Mr. Tag-rag,
who imagined them not to be exactly suitable appendages for
counter-jumpers. Thus will it be seen that the space shaved over on this
occasion was somewhat circumscribed. This operation over, he took out of
his trunk an old dirty-looking pomatum pot. A modicum of its contents,
extracted on the tips of his two forefingers, he stroked carefully into
his eyebrows; then spreading some on the palms of his hands, he rubbed
it vigorously into his stubborn hair and whiskers for some quarter of an
hour; afterwards combing and brushing his hair into half a dozen
different dispositions--so fastidious in that matter was Mr. Titmouse.
Then he dipped the end of a towel into a little water, and twisting it
round his right forefinger, passed it gently over his face, carefully
avoiding his eyebrows, and the hair at the top, sides, and bottom of his
face, which he then wiped with a dry corner of the towel; and no farther
did Mr. Tittlebat Titmouse think it necessary to carry his ablutions.
Had he, however, been able to "see himself as others saw him," in
respect of those neglected regions which lay somewhere behind and
beneath his ears, he might not, possibly, have thought it superfluous to
irrigate them with a little soap and water; but, after all, he knew
best; it might have given him cold: and besides, his hair was very thick
and long behind, and might perhaps conceal anything that was unsightly.
Then Mr. Titmouse drew from underneath the bed a bottle of "incomparable
blacking," and a couple of brushes; with great labor and skill polishing
his boots up to a wonderful degree of brilliancy. Having replaced his
blacking implements under the bed and washed his hands, he devoted a few
moments to boiling about three tea-spoonfuls of coffee, (as it was
styled on the paper from which he took, and i