ched for a Quaker oats
label and a soap advertisement and pasted them on.

"Oh, dad said he wished he had some foreign labels of hotels and things
on his valise, to make fellow travelers believe he had been abroad
before, and I told him I could fix it all right. You see, if I paste
things all over the valise he will think it is all right, 'cause he
is near sighted," and the boy pasted on a label for 37 varieties of
pickles, and then put on an advertisement for hair restorer on the hat
box.

"Say, here's a fine one, this malted milk label, with a New Jersey cow
on the corner," said the old man, as he began to take interest in the
boy's talent as an artist. "And here, try one of these green pea can
labels, and the pork and beans legend, and the only soap. Say, if you
and your dad don't create a sensation from the minute you take the train
till you get back, you can take it out of my wages. When are you going?"

"To-morrow night," said the boy, as he put more labels on the hat box,
and stood off and looked at them with the eye of an artist. "We go to
New York first to stay a few days and see things, and then we take a
steamer and sail away, and the sicker dad is the more time I will have
to fill up on useful nollig."

"Hennery," said the old groceryman, as his chin trembled, and a tear
came to his eye. "I want to ask you a favor. At times, when you have
been unusually mean, I have thought I hated you, but when I have said
something ugly to you, and have laid awake all night regretting it, it
has occurred to me that you were about the best friend I had. I think it
makes an old man forget his years, to be chummy with a live boy, full of
ginger, and I do like you, condemn you, and I can't help it. Now I want
you to write me every little while, on your trip, and I will read your
letters to the customers here in the store, who will be lonely until
they can hear that you are dead. The neighbors will come in to read your
letters, and it will bring me custom. Will you write to me, boy, and
pour out your heart to me, and tell me of the different troubles you get
your dad into, for surely you cannot help finding trouble over there if
you go hunting for it. Promise me, boy."

"You bet your life I will, old pard," said the bad boy. "I shall have to
have some escape valve to keep from busting. I was going to write to
my chum, but he is in love with a telephone girl, and he don't take any
time for pleasure. I will write you about e