The Bad Boy

-wen, üowis the baby," asked the jrocery man of the bad boy, ashe cam nto thegrocery sniellingvery "hoicey,1 md sat down on the chair . with the ack gone, and looked very tired. "O, darn the baby. Everybody asks me about the baby as though i"t was line. I don't pay no attention to the darn thing, except to notice the foolishïess going on around the house. Say, guess that baby will grow up to be a ire engine. The nurse coupled the )aby on to a section of rubber hose that uns down into a bottle of milk, and it fgan to get up steam and pretty soon he milk began to disappcar, just like ae water does when a fire engine ouples on to a hydrant. Pa calis the aby -Old Number Two.' I am 'Num)er One,' and if pa had a hook and adder truck and a hose cart, and a tire gong he would imagine he was cliief ngineerofthe firc department. But be baby kicks on this wagon milk, and ïowls like a dog tbat's got lost. The oetor told pa the best thing he could o was to get a goat, but pa said since re 'nishiated him into the Masons with he goat he wouldn'thavea goat around o how. The doe told pa the other kind f a goat, I think it was a Samantha ;oat he said, wouldn't kick with its ïead, and pa sent me up into the 'olack settlement to see if couldn't borrow a milk goat or a few weeks. I got a woman to end us her goat till the baby got big nough to chew beef. for a dollar a veek, and paid a dollar in advance.and a went up in the evening to help me jet the goat. Well it was the darndest aistake you ever see. There was two roats so near alike you couldn't teil which was the goat we leased, and the other goat was the chum of our goat, but it belonged to a Nirish woman. We rot a bed cord hitched around the Irish ;oat, and that goat didn't recognize the ease, and when we tried to jerk it along it raredrightup, and made things eal quick for pa. I don't know what here is about s, goat that makes it get o spunky, but that goat seemed to lave a grudge agaiust pa frotn the flrst. f there were any places on pa's manly orm that tho goat did not explore, with ts head, pa don't know where the )laces are. O, it lammed him, and vhen I laffed pa got mad. I told him every man ought to furnish his own oats, when he had a baby, and I let go )f the rope and started off, and pa said ie knew how it was, I wanted him to rot killed. It wasn't that, but I saw he Irish woman that owned the goat oming around the corner of the house vith a cistern pole. Just as pa was 'etting tho goat out of thegate the goat fot cross ways of the gate, ana pa anked, and doubled the goat right up, and 1 thought he had broke the goats neck, and the woman thought so too, he jabbed pa with the cistern pole just belowthe belt, and she tried to get hold of pa's luir, but he had her there. No woman eau get the advantage of pa hat way, 'causo ma has tried it. Well, a explained it to the woman, and she et pa off if he would pay her two dolars for damages to her goat, and he aid it, and then we took the nanny foat, and it went right along with us. Jut I have got my opimon of a baby that will drink gout's milk. Gosh, it is like that stuff ihat comes in a spoilod eocoanut. The baby hasn't done anythiug but blat sinoe the nurse coupled it onto the goat hydrant. I had to tako all my play things out of the basket to keep the goat from eating them. I guess the niihc will taste of powder and singed hair now. The goat got to eating some Roman candles me and my chum had laid a way in the coal bin, and chewed them all around the f urnace, and the powder leakei) out and a coal feil out of the furnace on the hearth, and you'd a dide to see pa atd the i hired girl and the goat. You see pa can't milk nothing but a milk wagon, ¦ and he got the hired girl to milk the goat, and they were just hunting around the basement for the goat, wilh a tin cup, when the fire works went otf' Well, there was balls of green, and red," i and blue fire, and spilled powder blazed up, and the goat just looked astonished. and looked on as though it was sorry so much good fodder was spoiled, but when its nair began to burn, the goat gave one snort and went between pa and the hired girl like it was shot out of a eannon, and it knocked pa over a wash boiler into the coal bin, and the hired girl in amongst the kindling wood, and sne crossed herself and iepeated the catekism, and the goat jumped up on top of the brick furnace, and they eouldn't get it down. I heard the celcbration and went down and took pa by the paius and pullea him outof the coal bin, and he said ho would surrender, and plead guilty of being the biggest fooi in Milwaukee. I pulled tfle kinöling wood off the hired girl, and then she got mad, and said she would milk that goat or die. O, that girl has got sand. She used to work in the glass factory. Well, sir, it was a sight worth two shilling admission, to see that hired girl get up on a step ladder to milk that goat on top of the furnace, with pa sittiog on a barrel of potatoea, bossing the job. They are going to fix a gang plank to get the goat down off the powder and burnt hair, the milk was too warm on account of the furnaoe. Pa bas got to grow i new lot of hair on that goat, or the woman won't take it back. She don't want no bald goat. Well, they "can run the baby and goat to guit themselves, 'canse I haveresigned. I have gone into business. Don't you smell anything that would lead you to surmise" that I had gono into business? No dmgstore this time, and the boy got up and put his thumbs in the armholes of his vest, and looked proud. "Oh, I don't know as i smell anything, except the faint odor of a horso blanket. What you gone into anyway," and the grocery man put the wrapping paper under the counter, and put the red chalk in his pocket, so the boy couldn't write any sign to hang up outside. "You hit it the first time. I have accepted a situation of teller in a livery stable," said the boy, as he searched around for the barref of cut sugar, which had been removed. "Teller in a livery stable! Well, that is a new one on me. What is a teller in a livery stable?" and the grocery man looked pleased, and pointed the boy to a barrel of seven cent sugar. 'Don't you know what a teller is in a livery stable? It is the same as a teller in a bank. I have to grease the harnesses, oil the buggies, and curry off the horses, and when a man comes into hirc a horse I have to go down to the saloon and teil the livery man. That's what a teller is. I like the teller part of it, but greaslng harnesses is a little too rich for my blóod, but the livery man says if I stick to it I will be governor sorne day, 'cause most all the great men have begun life taking care of horses. It all depcnds on my girl whether I stick or not. If she likes the smell of horses I shall be a statesman, but if she objets to it, aud sticks up her nose, I shall not yearn to be governor, at the expense of my girl. It beats all, don't "it, that wimmen settle every great question. Everybody does everything to please wimmen, and if they kick on anything that settles it. But I must go and umpire that game between pa and the hired girl and the goat. Say, can'tyou come over and see the baby? 'Taint bigger than a small satchel," and the boy waited until the grocery man went to draw some vinegar when he slipped out and put up a sigu written on a shingle with white chalk "yellaw sand wanted I for white sugar." As a general thinsr, the majority of persons know notliing about what a wild, hilanous time hotel keepers have in their effortslo struggle along from one iveek to another and not be roped in and bilked by the thousands of dead beats who roam through the country, with no assets but unlimited cheek, and a eapacity for absorbing food that would put to sharne a horse power oora sheller. It seems as i( there were a million bilks of this stamp m every state in the union, and each one conjuring up a million new ways of beating a landlord every week, and it takes pretty nearly all of a hotel man's time to keep watch and see that he is not taken in by some highway robber who merüly tells him to Itold up his hands andthengoes through his hotel for a week's board and lodging. The other day a rneek looking tramp walked into a hotel in an Iowa town, set a portly looking "grip" down on the floor and quietly told the landlord that he was the forcman of a gang of telegraph linemen who were engaged in putting up wires iu that neighborhood, and that he desired to engage rooms and board for six men. The landlord sized him up, ceived him cordially and gave him supper and the best room in the house. In the morninghe got up and ordered dinners put up for six men, who he said were sleeping under a tent just outside of the town, and he got his breakfast, took the dinners for the men and dcparted. and the laiidlord has not seen him sinee The landlord. who was always known as a quiet, good-catured fellow, has become a changed man, and he is so hot now, that if water should drop on him he Would "siss" like a hot si ove lid. líe says he can stand an ordinixry tramp, but one that will not only beat a man out of two meals and a night's lodging, but also rob liim of victuals enough to keep him all summer, is more than any hotel maa can stand and he is loaded to thu muzzle for trampa now. - Peck's Sun. According to Electricite, spiders whieh are numerous in Japan, spin their webs during the night betweeu the telegraph wires and their supports. As the dews are very abundant, the webs beeome conduetors of electricity and give rise to great distui'bance in the traasmission of messages.