be pretty tough
on a blonde to get her hair all fixed fluffy, after years of patient
coloring, and then find she has gone out of style, and no op'ry will
hire her to shed blonde hair on the coats of the chorus fellows. Oh,
Uncle Ike, come away from the window or you will be stolen," and the boy
dragged the old man away from the window, handed him his pipe, and said,
"Smoke up and try to forget it."

"Forget nothing," said the old man, as he lit the torch and a smile came
over his good-natured face. "Don't you worry about blonde girls going
out of style. These bleached ones, who never were the real thing, may
go back to their natural, beautiful brunetticism, and when they realize
how foolish they have been, trying to bunko nature, they will be happier
than ever, but the natural blonde will never go out of style. She is
a joy forever. Do you know, when a man gets in love with a girl he
couldn't tell what the color of her hair was, to save him? He knows all
about her eyes, and her hands, and her face, but unless he finds a hair
on his coat he can't tell what is the color of the hair of his beloved.
Love is like smoking. You may smoke in the dark, and if your pipe goes
out you smoke right along and don't know the difference. You sit up with
a girl in the dark and you can't see her, and she may go to sleep, but
love keeps smoking right along and never seems to go out. When I was
wounded at the battle of Pea Ridge, and was taken to a young ladies'
seminary to be doctored and nursed back to life----"

"Oh, do quit, Uncle Ike! If you had been taken wounded to a young
ladies' seminary, say in 1863, thirty-six years ago, you would have been
there yet, and your wound would still be paining you, and the girls who
saved your life would be grown up to be gray-haired old women," and the
boy jollied the old man until he blushed. "You must have known a man
named Ananias in the army. Say, Uncle Ike, you know you wanted me to
learn a trade, and I have decided that I would like to learn the trade
of a bishop. I read of the death of a bishop the other day who was worth
half a million dollars, and now you must tell me how to become a bishop,
like Newman," and the boy laughed as though he had got the old man in a
tight place.

"Well," said Uncle Ike, after stopping to think a moment, "you might
do worse. Do you know, boy, that Bishop Newman, who died recently,
did learn a trade? Well, he did. When he was a boy, he seemed to be a
no-account