but she found that I could be as
'hawty as a dook.' I got even with her, though. I pretended I wasn't mad,
and when she wanted me to put some perfumery on her handkerchief I said
'all right,' and I put on a little geranium and white rose, and then I got
some tincture of assafety, and sprinkled it on her dress and cloak when
she went out. That is about the worst smelling stuff that ever was, and I
was glad when she went out and met the telegraph boy on the corner. They
went off together; but he came back pretty soon, about the
homesickest boy you ever saw, and he told my chum he would never go with
that girl again because she smelled like spoiled oysters or sewer gas. Her
folks noticed it, and made her go and wash her feet and soak herself, and
her brother told my chum it didn't do any good, she smelled just like a
glue factory, and my chum--the darn fool--told her brother that it was me
who perfumed her, and he hit me in the eye with a frozen fish, down by the
fish store, and that's what made my eye black; but I know how to cure a
black eye. I have not been in a drug store eight days, and not know how to
cure a black eye; and I guess I learned that girl not to go back on a boy
'cause he smelled like a goat.

"Well, what was it about your leaving the wrong medicine at houses? The
policeman in this ward told me you come pretty near killing several people
by leaving the wrong medicine."

"The way of it was this. There was about a dozen different kinds of
medicine to leave at different places, and I was in a hurry to go to the
roller skating rink, so I got my chum to help me, and we just took the
numbers of the houses, and when we rung the bell we would hand out the
first package we come to, and I understand there was a good deal of
complaint. One old maid who ordered powder for her face, her ticket drew
some worm lozengers, and she kicked awfully, and a widow who was going to
be married, she ordered a celluloid comb and brush, and she got a nursing
bottle with a rubber nozzle, and a toothing ring, and she made quite a
fuss; but the woman who was weaning her baby and wanted the nursing
bottle, she got the comb and brush and some blue pills, and she never made
any fuss at all. It makes a good deal of difference, I notice, whether a
person gets a better thing than they order or not. But the drug business
is too lively for me. I have got to have a quiet place, and I guess I will
be a cash boy in a store. Pa says he thinks I wa