nd then Pa was mad and he said, 'look-a-here you sky-pilot, this thing
has gone far enough,' and then a policeman came along and first he
thought they were all drunk, but he found they were respectable, and he
got a chip and scraped the soap off of them, and they went home, and Pa
and Ma they got in the house some way, and just then the letter-carrier
came along, but he didn't have any letters for us, and he didn't come
onto the steps, and then I went up stairs and I said, 'Pa, don't you
think it is real mean, after you and I fixed the soap on the steps
for the letter-carrier, he didn't come on the step at all,' and Pa was
scraping the soap off his pants with a piece of shingle, and the hired
girl was putting liniment on Ma, and heating it in for palpitation of
the heart, and Pa said, 'You dam idjut, no more of this, or I'll maul
the liver out of you,' and I asked him if he didn't think soft soap
would help a moustache to grow, and he picked up Ma's work-basket and
threw it at my head, as I went down stairs, and I came over him. Don't
you think my Pa is unreasonable to get mad at a little joke that he
planned himself?"

The grocery man said he didn't know, and the boy went out with a pair of
skates over his shoulder, and the grocery man is wondering what joke the
boy will play on him to-get even for the cayenne pepper.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

HIS PA GETS MAD--A BOOM IN COURT-PLASTER--THE BAD BOY
DECLINES BEING MAULED!--THE OLD MAN GETS A HOT BOX--THE BAD
BOY BORROWS A CAT!--THE BATTLE!--"HELEN BLAZES"--THE CAT
VICTORIOUS!--THE BAD BOY DRAWS THE LINE AT KINDLING WOOD!

"I was down to the drug store this morning, and saw your Ma buying a
lot of court-plaster, enough to make a shirt, I should think. What's she
doing with so much court-plaster?" asked the grocery man of the bad boy,
as he came in and pulled off his boots by the stove and emptied out
a lot of snow, that had collected as he walked through a drift, which
melted and made a bad smell.

"O, I guess she is going to patch Pa up so he will hold water. Pa's
temper got him into the worst muss you ever see, last night. If that
museum was here now they would hire Pa and exhibit him as the tattooed
man. I tell you, I have got too old to be mauled as though I was a kid,
and any man who attacks me from this out, wants to have his peace made
with the insurance companies, and know that his calling and election
is sure, because I am a bad man, and don'