“I’ll do it,” says he. “In the mornin’ I’ll have a scheme, if I have to set up all night to git it.” “Does that decorum book say anythin’ about the good manners of sittin’ up all night?” says I. “It says a lot about askin’ fool questions,” says Catty, with a grin. “Meet me as early as you kin to-morrer. We’ll have a busy day.” CHAPTER XVIII Next morning I hustled over to Catty’s. He was up, and when I got there he was talking business to his father, who had a streak to want to go fishing that morning. Mr. Atkins said he was worked out and so respectable it hurt, and he wanted to get off somewheres so he could remember he was just a plain human being again that folks would set a dog on if he came around at night. He said there was something _fine_ about having a dog set on you. He said he _liked_ it. He said he liked to have his toes coming out of his shoes and a hole in his pants. He acted real put-out and rebellious, but Catty wouldn’t have any of it at all. He just stood his father up and lectured him, and when he got through Mr. Atkins was so wilted he couldn’t have pulled in a fish if he’d caught him. Catty looked at his father kind of sorry-like. “I hate to do it,” says he, “but it’s for your good, Dad.” I laughed right out, for _my_ Dad had said the same thing to me once or twice when we were on our way to the woodshed after I’d done something he thought I hadn’t ought to. It _was_ funny. Catty and his father had changed places, and it was Mr. Atkins that was the boy and Catty that was the Dad. “Look where we’ve got to,” says Catty. “We’re doing real well. We’re making a little money, and if we can figger to git the job of buildin’ this factory for Kinderhook, we’ll make quite a lot. You got to be ready for it. We’re goin’ to build us a house and keep a cook and wear dressed-up clothes every day in the week. I’ll bet you’ll be runnin’ for constable or town clerk or somethin’ ’fore you know it.” “Might git to be town clerk,” says Mr. Atkins, as sorrowful as a man that’s jest swallowed his collar-button when he was putting on his shirt to go to church and didn’t have another one, “but I hain’t hankerin’ to be no constable. I’d be scairt of myself all the time. I wouldn’t be able to sleep. I’d be all the time orderin’ myself out of town or shuttin’ myself up in the calaboose or somethin’. No, sirree! No constable for me!” “All right, then,” says Catty, “you don’t have to be—if you work hard and learn table manners. But jest so sure as you don’t keep up to snuff I’ll make a constable out of you if I have to bust doin’ it.” Just then Jack Phillips came in and before he knew it Mr. Atkins was interested in something about the houses they were building, and I saw he wouldn’t get to go fishing _that_ day. “Catty,” says I, “if you hain’t easier with your Pa he’ll up and run away from home.”