derisive laugh. "Ah! I shouldn't wonder.
If you'd been a man I s'pose you'd have pitched all those rough uns out
o' window, eh?"

"I should have liked to be able to take care of myself," I said.

"Without old Ike, eh, my lad?"

"I don't mean that," I said; "only I should like to be a man."

"Instead o' being very glad you're a boy with everything fresh and
bright about you. Red cheeks and clean skin and all your teeth, and all
the time to come before you, instead of having to look back and think
you're like an old spade--most wore out."

"Oh, but you're so strong, Ike! I should like to be a man."

"Like to be a boy, my lad, and thank God you are one," said old Ike,
speaking as I had never heard him speak before. "It's natur', I s'pose.
All boys wishes they was men, and when they're men they look back on
that happiest time of their lives when they was boys and wishes it could
come over again."

"Do they, Ike?" I said.

"I never knew a man who didn't," said Ike, making the cups dance on the
table by giving it a thump with his fist. "Why, Master Grant, I was
kicked about and hit when I was a boy more'n ever a boy was before, but
all that time seems bright and sunshiny to me."

"But do you think Shock's happy?" I said; "he's a boy, and has no one
to care about him."

"Happy! I should just think he is. All boys has troubles that they
feels bad at the time, but take 'em altogether they're as happy as can
be. Shock's happy enough his way or he wouldn't have been singing all
night atop of the load. There, you're a boy, and just you be thankful
that you are, my lad; being a boy's about as good a thing as there is."

We had nearly finished our breakfast when Ike turned on me sharply.

"Why, you don't look as if you was glad to be a boy," he said.

"I was thinking about what Mr Brownsmith will say when he knows I've
been in such trouble," I replied.

"Ah, he won't like it! But I suppose you ain't going to tell him?"

"Yes," I said, "I shall tell him."

Ike remained silent for a few minutes, and sat slowly filling his pipe.

At last, as we rose to go, after Ike had paid the waitress, he said to
me slowly:

"Sometimes doing right ain't pleasant and doing wrong is. It's quite
right to go and tell Old Brownsmith and get blowed up, and it would be
quite wrong not to tell him, but much the nystest. Howsoever, you tell
him as soon as we get back. He can't kill yer for that, and I don't
s'pose he'll