ut it down in writin_'."

With the air of a man who has settled a question definitely, but at the
same time is willing to listen politely to any crude suggestions that
you may have to throw out, Johnny crossed his legs, and thrust his hands
into those wonderful trousers-pockets. I turned my face aside, for I
felt a certain weakness creeping into the corners of my mouth. I was
lost. In an instant the little head, covered all over with yellow curls,
was laid upon my knee, and Johnny was crying, "I'm so very, very sorry!"

I have said that Johnny is the terror of the neighborhood. I think I
have not done the young gentleman an injustice. If there is a window
broken within the radius of two miles from our house, Johnny's ball, or
a stone known to come from his dexterous hand, is almost certain to be
found in the battered premises. I never hear the musical jingling of
splintered glass, but my _porte-monnaie_ gives a convulsive throb in my
breast-pocket. There is not a doorstep in our street that hasn't borne
evidences in red chalk of his artistic ability; there isn't a bell that
he hasn't rung and run away from at least three hundred times. Scarcely
a day passes but he falls out of something, or over something, or into
something. A ladder running up to the dizzy roof of an unfinished
building is no more to be resisted by him than the back platform of a
horse-car, when the conductor is collecting his fare in front.

I should not like to enumerate the battles that Johnny has fought during
the past eight months. It is a physical impossibility, I should judge,
for him to refuse a challenge. He picks his enemies out of all ranks of
society. He has fought the ash-man's boy, the grocer's boy, the rich
boys over the way, and any number of miscellaneous boys who chanced to
stray into our street.

I can't say that this young desperado is always victorious. I have known
the tip of his nose to be in a state of unpleasant redness for weeks
together. I have known him to come home frequently with no brim to his
hat; once he presented himself with only one shoe, on which occasion
his jacket was split up the back in a manner that gave him the
appearance of an over-ripe chestnut bursting out of its bur. How he will
fight! But this I can say,--if Johnny is as cruel as Caligula, he is
every bit as brave as Agamemnon. I never knew him to strike a boy
smaller than himself. I never knew him to tell a lie when a lie would
save him from disaster.