s a quaint, bird-like way
of cocking his head on one side, and asking a question that appears to
be the result of years of study. If I could answer some of those
questions, I should solve the darkest mysteries of life and death. His
inquiries, however, generally have a grotesque flavor. One night, when
the mosquitoes were making lively raids on his person, he appealed to
me, suddenly: "How does the moon feel when a skeeter bites it?" To his
meditative mind, the broad, smooth surface of the moon presented a
temptation not to be resisted by any stray skeeter.

I freely confess that Johnny is now and then too much for me. I wish I
could read him as cleverly as he reads me. He knows all my weak points;
he sees right through me, and makes me feel that I am a helpless infant
in his adroit hands. He has an argumentative, oracular air, when things
have gone wrong, which always upsets my dignity. Yet how cunningly he
uses his power! It is only in the last extremity that he crosses his
legs, puts his hands into his trousers-pockets, and argues the case with
me. One day last week he was very near coming to grief. By my
directions, kindling-wood and coal are placed every morning in the
library grate, in order that I may have a fire the moment I return at
night. Master Johnny must needs apply a lighted match to this
arrangement early in the forenoon. The fire was not discovered until the
blower was one mass of red-hot iron, and the wooden mantelpiece was
smoking with the intense heat.

When I came home, Johnny was led from the store-room, where he had been
imprisoned from an early period, and where he had employed himself in
eating about two dollars' worth of preserved pears.

"Johnny," said I, in as severe a tone as one could use in addressing a
person whose forehead glistened with syrup,--"Johnny, don't you remember
that I have always told you never to meddle with matches?"

It was something delicious to see Johnny trying to remember. He cast one
eye meditatively up to the ceiling, then he fixed it abstractedly on the
canary-bird, then he rubbed his ruffled brows with a sticky hand; but
really, for the life of him, he couldn't recall any injunctions
concerning matches.

"I can't, papa, truly, truly," said Johnny at length. "I guess I must
have forgot it."

"Well, Johnny, in order that you may not forget it in future--"

Here Johnny was seized with an idea. He interrupted me.

"I'll tell you what you do, papa,--_you just p