o know bad, I'll try it on you," growled the narrator.

"Good for Captain Jinks!" exclaimed two or three of the boys.

"When did you join the Hoss Marines?" asked Jerry, with apparent
interest.

"Shut up your mouth!" said the captain, who did not fancy the joke.

"Go ahead, Jinks."

"I would not stand that; so I went off, and lived at the Lodge till I
got in here. That's all."

Captain Jinks relapsed into silence, and Tim McQuade was called upon. He
had a pair of sparkling black eyes, that looked as if he were not averse
to fun.

"Maybe you don't know," he said, "that I'm fust cousin to a Markis."

"The Markis of Cork," suggested one of the boys.

"And sometimes I expect to come in for a lot of money, if I don't miss
of it."

"When you do, just treat a feller, will you?" said Jerry.

"Course I will. I was born in a big castle made of stone, and used to go
round dressed in welvet, and had no end of nice things, till one day a
feller that had a spite ag'in the Markis carried me off, and brought me
to America, where I had to go to work and earn my own livin'."

"Why don't you write the Markis, and get him to send for you?" asked
Jerry.

"'Cause he can't read, you spalpeen! What 'ud be the use of writin' to
him?"

"Maybe it's the fault of your writin', Tim."

"Maybe it is," said Tim. "When the Markis dies I'm going back, an' I'll
invite you all to come an' pass a week at Castle McQuade."

"Bully for you, Tim! Now, Dutchey, tell us your story."

Dutchey was a boy of ten, with a full face and rotund figure, whose
English, as he had been but two years in the country, was highly
flavored with his native dialect.

"I cannot English sprechen," he said.

"Never mind, Dutchey. Do as well as you can."

"It is mine story you want? He is not very long, but I will tell him so
goot as I can. Mine vater was a shoemaker, what makes boots. He come
from Sharmany, on der Rhein, mit my moder, and five childer. He take a
little shop, and make some money, till one day a house fall on his head
mit a brick, an he die. Then I go out into der street, and black boots
so much as I get him to do, and the money what I get I carry home to
mine moder. I cannot much English sprechen, or I could tell mine story
more goot."

"Bully for you, Dutchey! You're a trump."

"What is one trump?" asked the boy, with a puzzled expression.

"It is a good feller."

This explanation seemed to reconcile Dutchey to being called a trump,
and