“Well, sir,” said the boy, respectfully, as he sheathed his trusty sling-shot in his pistol pocket, after the dago had felt a shot strike his hat, and he looked around at the boy with the whites of his eyes glassy and his earrings shaking with wrath, “It was all on account of the innocentest mistake that aunty is ill this morning. You see, every night she puts cold cream all over her face, and on her hands clear up above her wrists, to make herself soft. Last night she forgot it until she had got in bed and the light was put out, and then she yelled to me to bring the little tin box out of the bathroom, and I was busy studying my algebra and I made a mistake and got the shoe dressing, that paste that they put on patent leather shoes. Well, Aunt Almira put it on generous, and rubbed it in nice. I didn't know I had made a mistake until this morning, but I couldn't sleep a wink all night thinking how funny aunty would look in the morning.” “Hold on,” said Uncle Ike, “don't prevaricate. You did it on purpose, and knew it all right, and let that poor lady sleep the sleep of innocence, blacker than the ace of spades. Say, if you was mine I would have a continuous performance right here now,” and Uncle Ike run his tongue a couple of times around a dry cigar a friend had given him, and licked the wrapper so it would hold in the shoddy filling. “Don't interrupt the speaker,” said the boy, as he handed Uncle Ike a match to touch off the Roman candle. “If you had seen Aunt Almira, just after she had yelled murder the third time this morning, you would not scold me. She woke up, and the first thing that attracted her attention was her hands, and she thought she had gone to bed with her long black kid party gloves on, and she tried to pull them off. When she couldn't get them off, she raised up in bed and looked at herself in a mirror, and that was the time she yelled, and I went in the room to help her. Well, sir, she hadn't missed a 'place on her face, neck and arms, and the paste shone just like patent leather. I said, aunty, you can go into the nigger show business, and she said, what is it, and I said, I give it up for I am no end man.” [Illustration: Wanted me to send for a doctor 035]