“Well, you aren't so awful old, and when I get to be as old as you Daniel will be eighty. Seth Kendall's grandfather isn't more than that, and he has to be fed with a spoon, and a nurse puts him to bed and wheels him around in a chair like a baby. That takes the stamps, _I_ bet! Well, I'll tell you how I'll keep my accounts; I'll have a stick like Robinson Crusoe, and every time I make a toadskin I'll gouge a piece out of one side of the stick, and every time I spend one I'll gouge a piece out of the other.” “Spend a what!” said the gentle and astonished voice of my sister Lu, who, unperceived, had slipped into the room. “A toadskin, ma,” replied Billy, shutting up Colburn with a farewell glance of contempt. “Dear! dear! where does the boy learn such horrid words?” “Why, ma! don't you know what a toadskin is? Here's one,” said Billy, drawing a dingy five-cent stamp from his pocket. “And don't I wish I had lots of 'em!” “Oh!” sighed his mother, “to think I should have a child so addicted to slang! How I wish he were like Daniel!” “Well, mother,” replied Billy, “if you wanted two boys just alike you'd oughter had twins. There ain't any use of my trying to be like Daniel now when he's got eleven years the start. Whoop! There's a dog-fight! Hear 'em! It's Joe Casey's dog--I know his bark!” With these words my nephew snatched his Glengarry bonnet from the table and bolted downstairs to see the fun. “What will become of him?” said Lu hopelessly; “he has no taste for anything but rough play; and then such language as he uses! Why _isn't_ he like Daniel?” “I suppose because his Maker never repeats himself. Even twins often possess strongly marked individualities. Don't you think it would be a good plan to learn Billy better before you try to teach him? If you do you'll make something as good of him as Daniel; though it will be rather different from that model.” “Remember, Ned, that you never did like Daniel as well as you do Billy. But we all know the proverb about old maids' daughters and old bachelors' sons. I wish you had Billy for a month--then you'd see.” “I'm not sure that I'd do any better than you. I might err as much in other directions. But I'd try to start right by acknowledging that he was a new problem, not to be worked without finding the value of 'x' in his particular instance. The formula which solves one boy will no more solve the next one than the rule of three will solve a question in calculus--or, to rise into your sphere, than the receipt for one-two-three-four cake conduct you to a successful issue through plum pudding--” I excel in metaphysical discussions, and was about giving further elaboration of my favorite idea when the door burst open. Master Billy came tumbling in with a torn jacket, a bloody nose, the trace of a few tears in his eyes, and the mangiest of cur dogs in his hands. “Oh my! my!! my!!!” exclaimed his mother.