ley, Prentiss, and Porter,
and I'll come after you and get all the letters for Pixley, Pratt,
Prince, and Pettigrew, and to-morrow, my dear, we'll come down and get
all the Q's--the Quigley, Quinn, and Quiller crowd--and--and we'll take
all the letters over to the fountain and throw them in the basin of
water, and if they float we'll pitch bricks at 'em! Now, now's your time,
go ahead, and get all the P's you can--it's a great scheme, great!" and
then he stopped, for an almost breathless voice called out: "Here he is,
Hank! confound him!" And as two men hurried toward my chipper old
reformer, one said, reproachfully: "Now, look-a-here, Mr. Peiffer, if you
don't keep your word no better nor this, Hank and me'll have to keep hold
of you on your walks, and you won't like that!"

"No," meekly murmured the old man, "I--er--I won't like that, I'm sure."

Then Hank turned to me and asked, suspiciously: "Has he been filling you
full of P's and Q's?"

I nodded. "Then," said the other man, "we'd better get him back quick,
that's the way he begins. Come on, now, Mr. Peiffer, come on!" and
between them they led away the poor white-haired old madman, who looked
back as he passed me, and whispered: "Pitch 'em in the fountain, I'll get
the Q's to-morrow!"

There, too, was the old, old grave-yard that the city had crept up to,
cautiously at first, then finding them quite harmless--the quiet
dead--had stretched out brick and mortar arms and circled it about. A
network of streets had tangled about it, and turbulent life dashed
against its very gates on the outside, but inside there was a great green
silence.

How well I knew the quiet place--the far, damp corner where, in lifting
bodies for removal to a new cemetery, one had been found petrified; the
giant sycamore-tree that guarded the grave of a mighty Indian chief, the
lonely hemlock blackened nook where a grave had been cruelly robbed, the
most expensive tomb, the most beautiful tomb, the oldest tomb, I knew
them all. But the special attraction for me was a plain white headstone
that happened to bear my own name. Whenever my mother boxed my ears, or
was too hasty in her judgment to be quite just, I went over to my silent
city and sat down and looked at the tombstone, and thought if it were
really mine how sorry my mother would feel for what she had done. And
when I had, in imagination, seen her tears and remorse, I would begin to
feel sorry for her and to think she was punished