is autograph album with a
coy:

"When this you see
Remember me."

[Illustration: _Piggy sat on the front porch, and reviewed the entire
affair_.]

[Illustration: _It began when his Heart's Desire had fluttered into
his autograph album_.]

He followed the corrugated course of true love, step by step up to its
climax, where, a week before, she had given him his choice of her new
pack of assorted visiting-cards. He rose at the end of five minutes'
sombre meditation, holding the curling gelatine card of his choice
in his warm hand. After venting a heavy sigh, he checked a motion to
throw away the token of his undoing and put it back into his pocket.
While he was plotting dark things against the life and happiness of
Mealy Jones, Piggy heard the sound of the merriment within, and a
mischievous smile spread over his angry countenance. He tiptoed to the
window, and peeped in. He saw his Heart's Desire sitting alone. He
cheered up a little, not much--but sufficiently to reach in his pocket
for his tick-tack.

Now, it may be clearly proved, if necessary, that the tick-tack was
invented by the devil. Any wise man's son knows that every boy between
the ages of ten and fourteen carries with him at all times a complete
outfit of the mechanical devices on which the devil holds the patent
and demands a royalty. So there is nothing really strange in the
statement that Piggy Pennington took from his Sunday clothes,
beneath a pocketful of Rewards of Merit for regular attendance at
Sunday-school--all dated before the Christmas-tree--a spool with
notched wheels, a lead pencil, and a bit of fishline. The line wound
round the spool. Piggy put the pencil through the hole in the
spool, and held the notched rims of the spool against the window
pane by pressing on the pencil axle. He gave the cord a quick jerk; a
rattle, a wail, and a shriek were successively produced by the notches
whirring on the glass. The company within doors screamed. Everyone
knew it was Piggy, but no one ever lived with nerves strong enough to
withstand the shock of a tick-tack. At the first shock those in-doors
decided to ignore the disturbance. But it occurred twice afterwards,
and a third tick-tack at a party is a dare. So the boys took it up. As
Piggy ran he forgot his hot, heavy shoes; he felt the night wind on
his face and in his hair. He cared nothing for his pursuers; he ran
for the gladness that came with running. Now he slackened his pace
and l