amb, and was willing to cast his lot wherever the Master decided,
but he would be blessed if he would preach any longer in a church that
smelled like a bone boiling establishment. He said religion was a good
thing, but no person could enjoy religion as well in a fat rending
establishment as he could in a flower garden, and as far as he was
concerned he had got enough. Everybody looked at everybody else, and
Pa looked at Ma as though he knew where the sewer gas came from, and Ma
looked at Pa real mad, and me and my chum lit out, and I went home and
distributed my cheese all around. I put a slice in Ma's bureau drawer,
down under her underclothes, and a piece in the spare room, under the
bed, and a piece in the bath-room, in the soap dish, and a slice in the
album on the parlor table, and a piece in the library in a book, and
I went to the dining room and put some under the table, and dropped a
piece under the range in the kitchen. I tell you the house was loaded
for bear. Ma came home from church first, and when I asked where Pa was,
she said she hoped he had gone to walk around a block to air hisself. Pa
came home to dinner, and when he got a smell of the house he opened all
the doors, and Ma put a comfortable around her shoulders and told Pa
he was a disgrace to civilization. She tried to get Pa to drink some
carbolic acid. Pa finally convinced Ma it was not him, and then they
decided it was the house that smelled so, as well as the church, and all
Sunday afternoon they went visiting, and this morning Pa went down to
the health office and got the inspector of nuisances to come up to the
house, and when he smelled around a spell he said there was dead rats
in the main sewer pipe, and they sent for plumbers, and Ma went out to a
neighbors to borry some fresh air, and when the plumbers began to dig
up the floor in the basement I came over here. If they find any of that
limberg cheese it will go hard with me. The hired girls have both quit,
and Ma says she is going to break up keeping house and board. That is
just into my hand, I want to board at a hotel, where you can have a
bill-of-fare and tooth picks, and billiards, and everything. Well I
guess I will go over to the house and stand in the back door and listen
to the mocking bird. If you see me come flying out of the alley with my
coat tail full of boots you can bet they have discovered the sewer gas."

CHAPTER XXVII.

HIS PA BROKE UP--THE BAD BOY DON'T THINK