ould kill me dead. That is the way I resigned. I tell you, they will
send for me again. They never can run that store without me.

"I guess they will worry along without you," said the grocery man. "How
does your Pa take your being fired out? I should think it would brake
him all up."

"O, I think Pa rather likes it. At first he thought he had a soft snap
with me in the drug store, cause he has got to drinking again, like a
fish, and he has gone back on the church entirely; but after I had put a
few things in his brandy he concluded it was cheaper to buy it, and he
is now patronizing a barrel house down by the river.

"One day I put some Castile soap in a drink of brandy, and Pa leaned
over the back fence more than an hour, with his finger down his throat.
The man that collects the ashes from the alley asked Pa if he had lost
anything, and Pa said he was only 'sugaring off.' I don't know what that
is. When Pa felt better he came in and wanted a little whiskey to
take the taste out of his mouth, and I gave him some, with about a
teaspoonful of pulverized alum in it. Well, sir, you'd a dide. Pa's
mouth and throat was so puckered up that he couldn't talk. I don't think
that drugman will make anything by firing me out, because I shall turn
all the trade that I control to another store. Why, sir, sometimes there
were eight and nine girls in the store all at wonct, on account of my
being there. They came to have me put extracts on their handkerchiefs,
and to eat gum drops--he will lose all that trade now. My girl that went
back on me for the telegraph messenger boy, she came with the rest of
the girls, but she found, that I could be as 'hawty as a dook.' I got
even with her, though. I pretended I wasn't mad, and when she wanted me
to put some perfumery op her handkerchief I said all right, and I put
on a little geranium and white rose, and then I got some tincture of
assafety, and sprinkled it on her dress and cloak when she went out.
That is about the worst smelling stuff that ever was, and I was glad
when she went out and met the telgraph boy on the corner. They went off
together; but he came back pretty soon, about the homesickest boy you
ever saw, and he told my chum he would never go with that girl again
because she smelled like spoiled oysters or sewer gas. Her folks noticed
it, and made her go and wash her feet and soak herself, and her brother
told my chum it didn't do any good, she smelled just like a glue
factory,