med to call for
lover-like treatment; but it was not without a sense of injury that he
exclaimed, immediately after, as he drew forth his watch:

"I declare! I would make an affidavit that we hadn't been awake half an
hour. Ah! I forgot to wind up my watch last night."

The boys hurried into the parlor.

"I hear 'em trampin' around!" exclaimed Budge, in great excitement.
"There!--the piano's shut! Isn't that _too_ mean! Oh, _I'll_ tell
you--here's Uncle Harry's violin."

"Then whatsh _I_ goin' to play on?" asked Toddie, dancing frantically
about.

"Wait a minute," said Budge, dropping the violin, and hurrying to the
floor above, from which he speedily returned with a comb. A bound volume
of the _Portfolio_ lay upon the table, and opening this, Badge tore the
tissue paper from one of the etchings and wrapped the comb in it.

"There!" said he, "you fiddle an' I'll blow the comb. Goodness! why
_don't_ they come down? Oh, we forgot to put pennies under the plate,
and we don't know how many years old to put 'em for."

"An' we ain't got no pennies," said Toddie.

"_I_ know," said Budge, hurrying to a cabinet in a drawer of which his
uncle kept the nucleus of a collection of American coinage. "This kind
of pennies," Budge continued, "isn't so pretty as our kind, but they're
bigger, an' they'll look better on a table-cloth. Now, how old do you
think she is?"

"I dunno," said Toddie, going into a reverie of hopeless conjecture.
"She's about as big as you and me put togevver."

"Well," said Budge, "you're four an' I'm six, an' four an' six is ten--I
guess ten'll be about the thing."

Mrs. Burton's plate was removed, and the pennies were deposited in a
circle. There was some painful counting and recounting, and many
disagreements, additions and subtractions. Finally, the pennies were
arranged in four rows, two of three each and two of two each, and Budge
counted the threes and Toddie verified the twos; and Budge was adding
the four sums together, when footsteps were heard descending the stairs.

Budge hastily dropped the surplus coppers upon the four rows, replaced
the plate, and seized the comb as Toddie placed the violin against his
knee, as he had seen small, itinerant Italians do. A second or two
later, as the host and hostess entered the dining-room, there arose a
sound which caused Mrs. Burton to clap her fingers to her ears, while
her husband exclaimed:

'"Scat!"

Then both boys dropped their instruments,