“I guess he was talking to the fish. Wall, sir, my chum took hold of Pa's foot and the collar of his coat and held him in the stern of the boat, and I paddled the boat to the shore, and Pa crawled out and shook himself. I never had no ijee a man'-pants could hold so much water. It was just like when they pull the thing on a street sprinkler. Then Pa took off his pants and my chum and me took hold of the legs and Pa took hold of the summer kitchen, and we rung the water out. Pa want so sociable after that, and he went back in the woods with his knife; with nothing on but a linen duster and a neck-tie, while his pants were drying on a tree, to cut a switch, and we hollered to him that a party of picnicers from Lake Side were coming ashore right where his pants were, to pic-nic, and Pa he run into the woods. He was afraid there would be some wimmen in the pic-nic that he knowed, and he coaxed us to come in the woods where he was, and he said he would give us a dollar a piece and not be mad any more if we would bring him his pants. We got his pants, and you ought to see how they was wrinkled when he put them on. They looked as though they had been ironed with waffle irons. We went to the depot and came home on a freight train, and Pa sneezed all the way in the caboose, and I don't think he has ruptured any blood vessel. Well, I get off here at Mitchell's bank,” and the boy turned the brake and jumped off without paying his fare. CHAPTER VIII. HE IS TOO HEALTHY. AN EMPTY CHAMPAGNE BOTTLE AND A BLACK EYE--HE IS ARRESTED--OCONOMOWOC FOR HEALTH--HIS PA IS AN OLD MASHER--DANCED TILL THE COWS CAME HOME--THE GIRL PROM THE SUNNY SOUTH--THE BAD BOY IS SENT HOME. “There, I knew you would get into trouble,” said the grocery man to the bad boy, as a policeman came along leading him by the ear, the boy having an empty champagne bottle in one hand, and a black eye. “What has he been doing Mr. Policeman?” asked the grocery man, as the policeman halted with the boy in front of the store. “Well, I was going by a house up here when this kid opened the door with a quart bottle of champagne, and he cut the wire and fired the cork at another boy, and the champagne went all over the sidewalk, and some of it went on me, and I knew there was something wrong, cause champagne is to expensive to waste that way, and he said he was running the shebang and if I would bring him here you would say he was all right. If you say so I will let him go.” The grocery man said he had better let the boy go, as his parents would not like to have their little pet locked up. So the policeman let go his ear, and he throwed the empty bottle at a coal wagon, and after the policeman had brushed the champagne off his coat, and smelled of his fingers, and started off, the grocery man turned to the boy, who was peeling a cucumber, and said: “Now, what kind of a circus have you been having, and what do you mean by destroying wine that way! and where are your folks?”