hope, and frequently confided in me that he thought he should never marry at all.
About two hours after Billy’s disappearance under his mother’s convoy, the defender of the oppressed returned to my room bearing the dog under his arm. His cheeks shone with washing like a pair of waxy Spitzenbergs, and other indignities had been offered him to the extent of the brush and comb. He also had a whole jacket on.
“Well, Billy,” said I, “what are you going to do with your dog?”
“I don’t know what I'm going to do. I’ve a great mind to be a bad, disobedient boy with him, and not have my days long in the land which the Lord my God giveth me.”
“O Billy!”
“I can’t help it. They won’t be long if I don’t mind ma, she says; and she wants me to be mean, and put Crab out in the street to have Patsy catch him and tie coffee-pots to his tail. I—I—I—”
Here my small nephew dug his fist into his eye and looked down.
I told Billy to stop where he was, and went to intercede with Lu. She was persuaded to entertain the angels of magnanimity and heroism in the disguise of a young fighting character, and to accept my surety for the behavior of his dog. Billy and I also obtained permission to go out together and be gone the entire afternoon.
230
