her peoples business
had a button-hole in it, Pa could button the wart in the button-hole,
as he always had his nose there. Well, I told Pa I could cure that wart
with caustic, and he said he would give five dollars if I could cure
it, so I took a stick of caustic and burned the wart off, but I guess
I burned down into the nose a little, for it swelled up as big as a
lobster. Pa says he would rather have a whole nest of warts than such a
nose, but it will be all right in a year or two."

CHAPTER XXIV.

HE QUITS THE DRUG BUSINESS. HE HAS DISSOLVED WITH THE
DRUGGER--THE OLD LADY AND THE GIN--THE BAD BOY IGNOMINIOUSLY
FIRED--HOW HE DOSED HIS PA's BRANDY--THE BAD BOY AS "HAWTY
AS A DOOK"--HE GETS EVEN WITH HIS GIRL--THE BAD BOY WANTS A
QUIET PLACE--THE OLD MAN THREATENS THE PARSON.

"What are you loafing around here for," says the grocery man to the bad
boy one day this week. "It is after nine o'clock, and I should think you
would want to be down to the drug store. How do you know but there may
be somebody dying for a dose of pills?"

"O, darn the drug store. I have got sick of that business, and I have
dissolved with the drugger. I have resigned. The policy of the store
did not meet with my approval, and I have stepped out and am waiting for
them to come and tender me a better position at an increased salary,"
said the boy, as he threw a cigar stub into a barrel of prunes and lit a
fresh one.

"Resigned, eh?" said the grocery man as he fished out the cigar stub and
charged the boy's father with two pounds of prunes, "didn't you and the
boss agree?"

"Not exactly, I gave an old lady some gin when she asked for camphor and
water, and she made a show of herself. I thought I would fool her, but
she knew mighty well what it was, and she drank about half a pint of
gin, and got to tipping over bottles and kegs of paint, and when the
drug man came in with his wife, the old woman threw her arms around his
neck and called him her darling, and when he pushed her away, and told
her she was drunk, she picked up a bottle of citrate of magnesia and
pointed it at him, and the cork came out like a pistol, and he thought
he was shot, and his wife fainted away, and the police came and took
the old gin refrigerator away, and then the drug man told me to face the
door, and when I wasn't looking he kicked me four times, and I landed
in the street, and he said if I ever came in sight of the store again
he w