r folks
to feel that I am taking the right course to become a star. I prythee
_au reservoir_. I go hens! but to return. Avaunt!" And the bad boy
walked out on his toes _a la_ Booth.

CHAPTER XVI.

UNCLE EZRA PAYS A VISIT--UNCLE EZRA CAUSES THE BAD BOY TO
BACKSLIDE--UNCLE EZRA AND THE OLD MAN WERE BAD PILLS--THEIR
RECORD IS AWFUL--KEEPING UNCLE EZRA ON THE RAGGED EDGE--THE
BED SLATS FIXED--THE OLD MAN TANGLED UP--THIS WORLD IS NOT
RUN RIGHT--UNCLE EZRA MAKES HIM TIRED.

"I hear your Uncle Ezra is here on a visit," said the grocery man to
the bad boy. "I suppose you have been having a high old time. There is
nothing that does a boy more good than to have a nice visit with a good
uncle, and hear him tell about old times when he and the boy's father
were boys together."

"Well, I don't know about it," said the boy, as he took a stick of
maccaroni, and began to blow paper wads through it at a wood sawyer, who
was filing a saw outside the door. "When a boy who has been tough has
got his pins all set to reform, I don't think it does him any good to
have a real nice Uncle come to the house visiting. Anyway, that's my
experience. I have backslid the worst way, and it is going to take me
a month after Uncle Ezra goes away to climb up to the grace that I have
fallen from. It is darn discouraging," said the boy as he looked up to
the ceiling in an innocent sort of a way, and hid the macarroni under
his coat when the wood sawyer, who had been hit in the neck, dropped his
saw and got up mad.

"What's the trouble? Your uncle has the reputation where he lives, of
being one of the pillars of society. But you can't tell about these
fellows when they get away from home. Does he drink?"

"'No, he don't drink; but as near as I can figure it, he and Pa were
about the worst pills in the box, when they were young. I don't wan't
you to repeat it, but when Pa and Ma were married they eloped. Yes,
sir--actually ran away, and defied their parents--and they had to hide
about a week, for fear Ma's father would fill Pa so full of cold lead
that he would sink if he fell in the water. Pa has been kicked over the
fence, and chased down alleys dozens of times by Ma's grandfather, when
he was sparking Ma; and Ma was a terror too, 'cause her mother couldn't
do anything with her, though she is awful precise now, and wants
everybody to be too good. Why, Ma's mother used to warm her ears, and
shake the daylights out of h