that way
too, and she said she used to, but it was nothing when you got used to
it. That made me mad. But she is older than me and knows more about it.
When I was going to leave her at the gate, she kissed me, and that was
worse than putting my arm around her. By gosh, I trembled all over just
like I had chills, but I was as warm as toast. She wouldn't let go for
much as a minute, and I was tired as though I had been carrying coal up
stairs."

[Illustration: The Bad Boy and his Girl p071]

"I didn't want to go home at all, but she said it would be the best way
for me to go home, and come again the next day, and the next morning I
went to her house before any of them were up, and her Pa came out to let
the cat in, and I asked him what time his girl got up, and he laffed and
said I had got it bad, and that I had better go home and not be picked
till I got ripe. Say, how much does it cost to get married?"

"Well, I should say you had got it bad," said the grocery man, as he set
out a basket of beets. "Your getting in love will be a great thing for
your Pa. You won't have any time to play any more jokes on him."

"O, I guess we can find time to keep Pa from being lonesome. Have you
seen him this morning? You ought to have seen him last night. You see,
my chum's Pa has got a setter dog stuffed. It is one that died two years
ago, and he thought a great deal of it, and he had it stuffed, for a
ornament.

"Well, my chum and me took the dog and put it on our front steps, and
took some cotton and fastened it to the dog's mouth so it looked just
like froth, and we got behind the door and waited for Pa to come home
from the theatre. When Pa started to come up the steps I growled and Pa
looked at the dog and said, "Mad dog, by crimus," and he started down
the sidewalk, and my chum barked just like a dog, and I "Ki-yi'd" and
growled like a dog that gets licked, and you ought to see Pa run. He
went around in the alley and was going to get in the basement window,
and my chum had a revolver with some blank cartridges, and we went down
in the basement and when Pa was trying to open the window my chum began
to fire towards Pa. Pa hollered that it was only him, and not a burglar,
but after my chum fired four shots Pa run and climbed over the fence,
and then we took the dog home and I stayed with my chum all night, and
this morning Ma said Pa didn't get home till four o'clock and then a
policeman came with him, and Pa talked about mad