lf before Lollo
stopped with a jerk at the place where they had started.

"Is his name Lollo?" asked Jackanapes, his hand lingering in the wiry
mane.

"Yes."

"What does Lollo mean?"

"Red."

"Is Lollo your pony?"

"No. My father's." And the Gipsy boy led Lollo away.

At the first opportunity Jackanapes stole away again to the common. This
time he saw the Gipsy-father, smoking a dirty pipe.

"Lollo is your pony, isn't he?" said Jackanapes.

"Yes."

"He's a very nice one."

"He's a racer."

"You don't want to sell him, do you?"

"Fifteen pounds," said the Gipsy-father; and Jackanapes sighed and went
home again. That very afternoon he and Tony rode the two donkeys, and
Tony managed to get thrown, and even Jackanapes' donkey kicked. But it
was jolting, clumsy work after the elastic swiftness and the dainty
mischief of the red-haired pony.

A few days later Miss Jessamine spoke very seriously to Jackanapes. She
was a good deal agitated as she told him that his grandfather, the
General, was coming to the Green, and that he must be on his very best
behavior during the visit. If it had been feasible to leave off calling
him Jackanapes and to get used to his baptismal name of Theodore before
the day after to-morrow (when the General was due), it would have been
satisfactory. But Miss Jessamine feared it would be impossible in
practice, and she had scruples about it on principle. It would not seem
quite truthful, although she had always most fully intended that he
should be called Theodore when he had outgrown the ridiculous
appropriateness of his nickname. The fact was that he had not outgrown
it, but he must take care to remember who was meant when his grandfather
said Theodore.

Indeed for that matter he must take care all along.

"You are apt to be giddy, Jackanapes," said Miss Jessamine.

"Yes aunt," said Jackanapes, thinking of the hobby-horses.

"You are a good boy, Jackanapes. Thank GOD, I can tell your grandfather
that. An obedient boy, an honorable boy, and a kind-hearted boy. But you
are--in short, you _are_ a Boy, Jackanapes. And I hope,"--added
Miss Jessamine, desperate with the results of experience--"that the
General knows that Boys will be Boys."

[Illustration]

What mischief could be foreseen, Jackanapes promised to guard against.
He was to keep his clothes and his hands clean, to look over his
catechism, not to put sticky things in his pockets, to keep that hair of
his smooth--("It