face aside to
hide a smile. I am sure my apology was a very good one.

I never had any more trouble with Conway. He and his shadow, Seth
Rodgers, gave me a wide berth for many months. Nor was Binny Wallace
subjected to further molestation. Miss Abigail's sanitary stores,
including a bottle of opodeldoc, were never called into requisition. The
six black silk patches, with their elastic strings, are still dangling
from a beam in the garret of the Nutter House, waiting for me to get
into fresh difficulties.

(1)"Tom Brown's School Days at Rugby"

Chapter Eleven--All About Gypsy

This record of my life at Rivermouth would be strangely incomplete did I
not devote an entire chapter to Gypsy. I had other pets, of course; for
what healthy boy could long exist without numerous friends in the animal
kingdom? I had two white mice that were forever gnawing their way out
of a pasteboard chateau, and crawling over my face when I lay asleep. I
used to keep the pink-eyed little beggars in my bedroom, greatly to the
annoyance of Miss Abigail, who was constantly fancying that one of the
mice had secreted itself somewhere about her person.

I also owned a dog, a terrier, who managed in some inscrutable way
to pick a quarrel with the moon, and on bright nights kept up such a
ki-yi-ing in our back garden, that we were finally forced to dispose
of him at private sale. He was purchased by Mr. Oxford, the butcher.
I protested against the arrangement and ever afterwards, when we had
sausages from Mr. Oxford's shop, I made believe I detected in them
certain evidences that Cato had been foully dealt with.

Of birds I had no end, robins, purple-martins, wrens, bulfinches,
bobolinks, ringdoves, and pigeons. At one time I took solid comfort
in the iniquitous society of a dissipated old parrot, who talked so
terribly, that the Rev. Wibird Hawkins, happening to get a sample of
Poll's vituperative powers, pronounced him "a benighted heathen," and
advised the Captain to get rid of him. A brace of turtles supplanted
the parrot in my affections; the turtles gave way to rabbits; and the
rabbits in turn yielded to the superior charms of a small monkey, which
the Captain bought of a sailor lately from the coast of Africa.

But Gypsy was the prime favorite, in spite of many rivals. I never grew
weary of her. She was the most knowing little thing in the world. Her
proper sphere in life--and the one to which she ultimately attained--was