The Project Gutenberg eBook, Mike Flannery On Duty and Off, by Ellis
Parker Butler, Illustrated by Gustavus C. Widney

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Title: Mike Flannery On Duty and Off

Author: Ellis Parker Butler

Release Date: March 9, 2005 [eBook #15300]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

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MIKE FLANNERY

On Duty and Off

by

ELLIS PARKER BUTLER

Illustrations by Gustavus C. Widney

New York Doubleday, Page & Company

MCMIX

[Illustration: "_'Pho-e-nix!' Is it a man's name, I dunno?_"]

CONTENTS

I. JUST LIKE A CAT

II. THE THREE HUNDRED

III. FLEAS WILL BE FLEAS

ILLUSTRATIONS

"'Pho-e-nix!' Is it a man's name, I dunno?" (Frontispiece)

"''Tis well enough t' say kape it, but cats like
thim does not kape very well'"

"'I will tell you what it is,' said Mr. Gratz"

"Her pencil was delicately poised above the ruled page"

I

JUST LIKE A CAT

They were doing good work out back of the Westcote express office. The
Westcote Land and Improvement Company was ripping the whole top off
Seiler's Hill and dumping it into the swampy meadow, and Mike Flannery
liked to sit at the back door of the express office, when there was
nothing to do, and watch the endless string of waggons dump the soft
clay and sand there. Already the swamp was a vast landscape of small
hills and valleys of new, soft soil, and soon it would burst into
streets and dwellings. That would mean more work, but Flannery did not
care; the company had allowed him a helper already, and Flannery had
hopes that by the time the swamp was populated Timmy would be o