drive a
minister to a funeral, he will walk," and the boy hobbled out and hung
out a sign in front of the grocery:

SMOKED DOG FISH AT HALIBUT PRICES,

GOOD ENOUGH

FOR COMPANY.

CHAPTER X.

THE OLD MAN MAKES A SPEECH--THE GROCERYMAN AND THE BAD BOY
HAVE A FUSS--THE BOHEMIAN BAND--THE BAD BOY ORGANIZES A
SERENADE--"BABY MINE"--THE OLD MAN ELOQUENT--THE BOHEMIANS
CREATE A FAMINE--THE Y. M. C. A. ANNOUNCEMENT.

"There, you drop that," said the groceryman to the bad boy, as he
came limping into the store, and began to fumble around a box of
strawberries. "I have never kicked at your eating my codfish, and
crackers and cheese, and herring, and apples, but there has got to be a
dividing line somewhere, and I make it at strawberries at six shillings
a box, and only two layers in a box. I only bought one box, hoping some
plumber, or gas man would come along and buy it, and by gum, everybody
that has been in the store has sampled a strawberry out of that box.
shivered as though it was sour, and gone off without asking the price,"
and the grocery man looked mad, took a hatchet and knocked in the head
of a barrel of apples, and said, "There, help yourself to dried apples."

"O, I don't want your strawberries or dried apples," said the boy, as he
leaned against a show case and looked at a bar of red, transparent soap.
"I was only trying to fool you. Say, that bar of soap is old enough to
vote. I remember seeing it in your show case when I was about a year
old, and Pa came in here with me and held me up to the show case to
look at that tin tobacco box, and that round zinc looking-glass, and
the yellow wooden pocket comb, and the soap looks just the same, only
a little faded. If you would wash yourself once in a while your soap
wouldn't dry up on your hands," and the boy sat down on the chair
without any back, feeling that he was even with the grocery man.

"You never mind the soap. It is paid for, and that is more than your
father can say about the soap that has been used in his house the past
month," said the grocery man, as he split up a box to kindle the fire.
"But we won't quarrel. What was it I heard about a band serenading your
father, and his inviting them in to lunch?"

"Don't let that get out or Pa will kill me dead. It was a joke. One of
those Bohemian bands that goes about town playing tunes for pen