to him, for I didn't call him
anything; but I should have kept it all the same if we had been on the
old terms.

Of course, Corny soon found out that there was something the matter
between us two, and she set herself to find out what it was.

"What's the matter with you and Rectus?" she asked me the next day. I
was standing in the carriage-way before the hotel, and she ran out to
me.

"You mustn't call him Rectus," said I. "He doesn't like it."

"Well, then, I wont," said she. "But what is it all about? Did you
quarrel about calling him that? I hate to see you both going about, and
not speaking to each other."

I had no reason to conceal anything, and so I told her the whole affair,
from the very beginning to the end.

"I don't wonder he's mad," said she, "if you thrashed him."

"Well, and oughtn't I to be mad after the way he treated me?" I asked.

"Yes," she said. "It makes me sick just to think of being tied up in
that way,--and the black paint, too! But then you are so much bigger
than he is, that it don't seem right for you to thrash him."

"That's one reason I did it," said I. "I didn't want to fight him as I
should have fought a fellow of my own size. I wanted to punish him. Do
you think that when a father wants to whip his son he ought to wait
until he grows up as big as he is?"

"No," said Corny, very gravely. "Of course not. But Rectus isn't your
son. What shall I call him? Samuel, or Sam? I don't like either of them,
and I wont say Mr. Colbert. I think 'Rectus' is a great deal nicer."

"So do I," I said; "but that's his affair. To be sure, he isn't my son,
but he's under my care, and if he wasn't, it would make no difference.
I'd thrash any boy alive who played such a trick on me."

"Unless he was bigger than you are," said Corny.

"Well, then I'd get you to help me. You'd do it; wouldn't you, Corny?"

She laughed.

"I guess I couldn't help much, and I suppose you're both right to be
angry at each other; but I'm awful sorry if things are going on this
way. It didn't seem like the same place yesterday. Nobody did anything
at all."

"I tell you what it is, Corny," said I. "You're not angry with either of
us; are you?"

"No, indeed," said she, and her face warmed up and her eyes shone.

"That's one comfort," said I, and I gave her a good hand-shake.

It must have looked funny to see a boy and a girl shaking hands there in
front of the hotel, and a young darkey took advantage of our good-hu