r by a large string,
with hideous outcries, to imaginary fires.

Melons was not gregarious in his habits. A few youth of his own age
sometimes called upon him, but they eventually became abusive, and their
visits were more strictly predatory incursions for old bottles and junk
which formed the staple of McGinnis's Court. Overcome by loneliness one
day, Melons inveigled a blind harper into the court. For two hours did
that wretched man prosecute his unhallowed calling, unrecompensed, and
going round and round the court, apparently under the impression that it
was some other place, while Melons surveyed him from an adjoining fence
with calm satisfaction. It was this absence of conscientious motives
that brought Melons into disrepute with his aristocratic neighbors.
Orders were issued that no child of wealthy and pious parentage should
play with him. This mandate, as a matter of course, invested Melons with
a fascinating interest to them. Admiring glances were cast at Melons
from nursery windows. Baby fingers beckoned to him. Invitations to tea
(on wood and pewter) were lisped to him from aristocratic back-yards. It
was evident he was looked upon as a pure and noble being, untrammelled
by the conventionalities of parentage, and physically as well as
mentally exalted above them. One afternoon an unusual commotion
prevailed in the vicinity of McGinnis's Court. Looking from my window I
saw Melons perched on the roof of a stable, pulling up a rope by which
one "Tommy," an infant scion of an adjacent and wealthy house, was
suspended in mid-air. In vain the female relatives of Tommy congregated
in the back-yard, expostulated with Melons; in vain the unhappy father
shook his fist at him. Secure in his position, Melons redoubled his
exertions and at last landed Tommy on the roof. Then it was that the
humiliating fact was disclosed that Tommy had been acting in collusion
with Melons. He grinned delightedly back at his parents, as if "by merit
raised to that bad eminence." Long before the ladder arrived that was
to succor him, he became the sworn ally of Melons, and, I regret to say,
incited by the same audacious boy, "chaffed" his own flesh and blood
below him. He was eventually taken, though, of course, Melons escaped.
But Tommy was restricted to the window after that, and the companionship
was limited to "Hi, Melons!" and "You, Tommy!" and Melons, to all
practical purposes, lost him forever. I looked afterward to see some
signs o