e
point of going, now.

"He is coming down with me."

His voice fell a little, at this part of the announcement.

"He is, eh? You think you will have to be on your best behaviour,
Bob?"

"Before you told me about him, Mr. Medlin, I should have thought it
would quite spoil the holiday. But I do not feel it so bad, now."

"He will be all right, Bob. You have never seen him outside the
city, yet. Still, I shouldn't be up to any tricks with him, you
know, if I were you--shouldn't put cobbler's wax on his pigtail, or
anything of that sort."

"As if I should think of such a thing, Mr. Medlin!"

"Well, I don't know, Bob. You have made Jack pretty nearly as wild
as you are, yourself. You are quite a scandal to the neighbourhood,
you two. You nearly frightened those two ladies next door into
fits, last week, by carrying in that snowman, and sticking it up in
their garden, when you knew they were out. I thought they were both
going to have fits, when they rushed in to tell me there was a
ghost in their garden."

"I believe you suggested it yourself, Mr. Medlin," Bob said,
indignantly. "Besides, it served them right, for coming in to
complain that we had thrown stones and broken their window, when we
had done nothing of the sort."

"It was rather lucky for you that they did so, Bob; for you see, we
were all so indignant, then, that they didn't venture to accuse you
of the snowman business--though I have no doubt they were
convinced, in their own minds, that it was you. But that is only
one out of twenty pranks that you and Jack have been up to."

"Jack and I and someone else, Mr Medlin. We carry them out, but I
think someone else always suggests them."

"Not suggest, Bob--far from it. If I happen to say that it would be
a most reprehensible thing if anyone were to do something, somehow
or other that is the very thing that Jack and you do. It was only
last week I said that it would be a very objectionable trick if
anyone was to tie paper bands round the neck of the clergyman's
black cat--who is always stealing our chickens--and to my surprise,
the next morning, when we started for business, there was quite a
crowd outside his house, watching the cat calmly sitting over the
porch, with white bands round its neck. Now, that is an example of
what I mean."

"Quite so, Mr. Medlin, that is just what I meant, too; and it was
much better than throwing stones at him. It is a savage beast,
though it does look so demure; and