THE BAD BOY AGAIN.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3670, 19 April 1883, Page 4

THE BAD BOY AGAIN.

His Pα an .Lvvkntor. '•' Ha .' Ha ! Now I have got you," said the grocery man to the bad boy, the other morning, as he came in and jumped upon the counter and tied the end of a ball of twine to the tail of a dog, and " sicked " the dog on another dog that was following a passing sleigh, causing the twine to pay out until the whole ball was scattered along the block. '• Condemn you. I've a notion to choke the liver out of you. Who tied that twine to the dog's tail:-" The boy choked up with emotion, and the tears came to his eyes, and he said lie didn't know anything about the twine or the dog. He said he noticed the dog come in, and wag his tail around the twine, but he supposed the dog was a friend of the family, and did not disturb him. " Everybody lays every tiling that is done to me," said the boy, as lie put his handkerchief to his nose, " and they will lie sorry for it when I die. I have a good notion to poison myself by eating some of your glucose sugar." " Yes. and you do about everything that is mean. The other day a lady came in, and told me to scud up to her house some of my muslin sausage, done lrpiu muslin bags, and whilst she "was examining it she noticed something hard inside the bags, and asked me what it was, and I opened it, and I hope to die if there wasn't a little brass padlock and a piece of a red morocco dog collar embedded in the sausage. Now, how do you suppose that got in there r" and the grocery man looked savage. The boy looked interested and put on an expression as though in deep thought, and finally said: "I suppose the fanner who put up the sausage did not strain the dog meat. Sausage meat ought to be strained."

The grocery man pulled in about half a block of twine, after the dog had run

against a fence and broke it. and told the boy ho knew perfectly well how the brass padlock came to be in thu sausage, but thinkinir that it wis safer to have the goodwill of the boy than the ill-will, he ottered him a handful of prunes.

" No," r>;iid the boy, "lhave sworn off on mouldy prunes. lam no kinder-garten any more. For years I have eaten rotten peaches around this store, and everything you couldn't sell, but I have turned over a new leaf now, and after this nothing is good for me. Since pa has got to be an inventor, we are going to live high."

" What's your pa invented r I saw a hearse and three hacks go up on your street the other day, and I thought maybe you had killed your pa."

" Not much. There, will be more than three hacks when I kill pa, and don't you forget it. Well, sir, pa has struck a fortune, if he cm make the thing work. He has got an idea about coal stoves that will bring him in several million dollars on every coal stove in the world. His idea is to have a coal stove on casters with the pipe made to telescope out and in, and rubber hose for one joint, so you can pull the stove all around the room and warm any particular place. Well, sir, to hear pa tell about it, you would think it would revolutionize the country, and maybe it will when he gets it perfected, but he came near burning the house up, and scared us all half to death this morning, and burned his shirt off, and lie is all covered with cotton with sweet oil on, and he smells like salad dressing. You see, pa had a pipe made and some castors put on our coal stove, and he tied a rope to the hearth of the stove, and had me put in some kindling wood and coal last night, so that he could draw the stove up to the bed, and light the fire without getting up. Ma told him he would put Iris foot in it, and lie told her to dry up, and let him run the stove business. He said it took a man with a brain to run a patent right, and mil, she pulled the clothes over her head and let pa do the tire act. She lias been building the fires for twenty years, and thought she would let pa see how good it was. Well, pa pulled the stove to the bed and touched off the kindling wood that the hired girl had put. kerosene on, cause it blazed up awful and smoked, and the blaze bursted out the doors and windows of the stove, and pa yelled fire, and I jumped out of bed and rushed in, and he was the scartest man you ever see, and you'd a died to sec how he kicked when I threw a pail of water on his legs and put his shirt out. Ma did not get burned, but she was pretty wet, and she told pa she would pay the five dollars royalty on that stove, and take the castors oft' and let it remain stationary. Pa says he will make it work if lie burns the house down. I think it was real mean in pa to get mad at me because I threw cold water on him instead of warm water, to put his shirt out. If I had waited till 1 could heat water to the right temperature I would have been an orphan, and pa would have been a burnt offering. But some men always kick at anything. Pa has given up business entirely, and says he shall devote the remainder of his life curing himself of the different troubles that 1 get him into. He has retained a doctor by the year, and he buys liniment by the gallon." "What was it about your folks getting up in the night to cat? The hired girl was over here after some soap the other morning, and she said she was going to leave your house." "Well, that Avas a picnic. Pa said he wanted breakfast earlier than we had been in the habit of having it, and ho .said I might see to it that the house was awake early enough. The other night I awoke with the awfulest pain you over heard of. It was that night that you gave me and my chum the bottle of pickled oysters that it begun in work. Well, I couldn't sleep, and I I hough! I. would call the hired girls, and they got up and got breakfast to going, and 1 rapped on pa and ma's door, and told I them the breakfast was getting cold, and they got up and came down. Wo eat breakfast by gas light, and pa yawned, and said it made a man feel good to get up and get ready for work before daylight, the way he used to, on the farm, and ma, she yawned and agreed with pa, 'cause she has to, or have a row. After breakfast we sat around for an hour, and pa said it was a long time getting , daylight, and bimeby jsa looked at his watch. "When he begun to pull out his watch I lit out and hid in the store room, and pretty soon I heard pa and ma come upstairs and go to bed, and then the hired girls, they went to bed, and when it was all still, and the pain had stopped inside of my clothes, I went to bed, and I looked to set; what time it was, and it "was two o'clock in the morning. "YVo got dinner at eight o'clock in the morning, and pa said lie guessed he would call up the house after this, so I have lost another job, and it was all on account of that bottle of pickled oysters you gave me. My chum says he had colic, too, but he didn't call up his folks. It was all he could do to get up hisself. "Why don't you sometimes give away something that is not spiled '; " The grocery man said he guessed he knew what to yivo away, and the boy went out

and hung tip a sign in front of the grocery, that he had made on wrapping paper with red chalk, which read: "Rotten eggs, good enough for custard pies, for 18 cents a dozen."—Peck's Sun.