ng to manage it?" Mr. Perkins wanted to know. "Because
you can't very well go out for long walks and leave Grandpa
alone"--which showed that Mr. Perkins felt as One-Eye did about it. "If
there was a fire, say, what could the poor, old, helpless man do?"

"I never thought of that!" admitted Johnnie. "But"--with clear
logic--"when Big Tom's home, and Grandpa's safe's anything, why, even
then I ain't ever 'lowed to go for a walk. Big Tom and Mustapha, they're
both against me and Aladdin playin' in the street."

"What about the roof?" asked Mr. Perkins.

Strangely enough, Johnnie had never thought of that, either. "But Aunt
Sophie wouldn't 'low me to go up on her roof," he remembered. "And I
don't b'lieve the jan'-tress would on this one."

He was right. Though Mr. Perkins called personally upon that lady, and
laid before her the question of Johnnie's health, she was adamantine in
her refusal. Even the sight of a two-dollar bill could not sway her,
offered, as Mr. Perkins explained, not in the hope of bribing her to do
anything that was forbidden, but as pay in case Johnnie proved to be any
trouble; for she had explained, "Kids is fierce for t'rowin' trash
'round, and I can't swip the roof only once a year."

Mr. Perkins was keenly disappointed. But he tried to make light of their
set-back, and distracted Johnnie's thoughts from the roof by producing
two wonderful presents. One was an unframed picture of Colonel Theodore
Roosevelt, looking splendid and soldierlike in a uniform and a broad
hat turned up at one side, and a sword that hung from his belt. The
second gift was a toothbrush.

Johnnie pinned the picture above Cis's dressing-table box in the tiny
room. The toothbrush (it had a handle of pure ivory!), he slipped inside
his shirt. Mr. Perkins suggested delicately that, when it came to the
care of the teeth, there was no time like the present. But Johnnie
begged for delay. "I want Cis t' see it while it's so nice and new," he
argued, "--before it's all wet and spoiled."

Cis was fairly enraptured when he showed her the brush. "Oh, I've been
wanting to own a good one for years!" she cried; "and not just the
ten-cent-store kind! Oh, Johnnie--!" She tipped her sleek head to one
side entreatingly.

Johnnie had foreseen all this. He bargained with her. "I'll swop y' the
brush," he declared.

"Swop for what?--Oh, Johnnie! Oh, isn't it _sweet_!"

Grandpa was in the room. Johnnie raised on his toes to whisper: "For