"Don't you know us, you old geezer? We
are the only and original Peck's Bad Boy and his Chum, come to life, and
ready for business," and the two boys danced a jig on the floor, covered
an inch thick with the spilled sugar of years ago, the molasses that had
strayed from barrel, and the general refuse of the dirty place, which
had become as hard as asphalt.

"O, dear, it is worse than I thought," said the old groceryman as he
laughed a hysterical laugh through the long whiskers, and he hugged the
boys as though he had a liking for them, notwithstanding the suffering
they had caused him. "By gosh, I thought you were nothing but common
robbers, who just wanted my money. You are old friends, and can have the
whole place," and he poured some milk into a basin for the cat, but the
animal only looked at the two boys as though she knew them, and watched
them to see what was coming next.

The bad boy looked around the old grocery, which had not changed a
particle during the time he had been away, the same old box of petrified
prunes, the dried apples that could not be cut with a hatchet, the
canned stuff on the shelves had become so old that the labels had curled
up and fallen off, so it must have been a guess with the old groceryman
whether he was selling a can of peas or tomatoes, and the old fellow
standing there as though the world had gone off and left him, as his
customers had.

"Well, wouldn't this skin you," said the bad boy, as he took up a
dried prune and tried to crack it with a hatchet on a two-pound weight,
turning to his chum who was stroking the singed hair of the old cat the
wrong way. "Say, old man, you ought to get a hustle on you. Why don't
you clean out this shebang, and put in a new stock, of goods, and have
clerks with white aprons on, and a girl bookkeeper, and goods that
people will buy and eat and not get sick? There is a grocery down street
that is as clean as a whistle, and I notice all your old customers go
there. Why don't you keep up with the times?"

"O, I ain't running a dude place," said the old man, as he took a piece
of soft coal and put it in the old round stove, and wiped the black off
his hands on his trousers. "I am trying to get rid of my customers. I
have got money enough to live on, and I just stay here waiting for the
old cat to die. I have only got six customers left, and one of them has
got pneumonia, and is going to die, then there will be only five. When
they are all gone I shal