“Can this be death?” said the boy, as he took off one of the old man's shoes and emptied out a handful of peanut shucks, and laughed loud and long. “Well, by gum!” said Uncle Ike, “peanuts instead of paralysis,” and he jumped up and kicked high with the lately paralyzed legs; “now, I haven't eaten peanuts in a week, and I suppose those shucks have been in my clothes all this time. I am not going to die. Go dig some worms and I will show you the liveliest corpse that ever caught a mess of bullheads,” and the boy dropped the shoe and went out winking and laughing as though he was having plenty of fun, and Uncle Ike went to a mirror and looked at himself to see if he was really alive. CHAPTER VII. “You are a nice-looking duck,” said Uncle Ike, as the red-headed boy came into the sitting-room with a black' eye and a scratch across his nose, and one thumb tied up in a rag, but looking as well, otherwise, as could be expected. “What you been doing? Run over by a trolley car or anything?” “Nope,” said the boy, as he looked in the mirror to see how his eye was coloring, with all the pride of a man who is coloring a meerschaum; “I just had a fight. Licked a boy, that's all,” and he put his hand to his head, where a lock of his red hair had been pulled out. “You look as though you had licked a boy,” said the old man taking a good look at the blue spot around the boy's eye. “I suppose he is telling his folks how he licked you, too. My experience has been that in these boys' fights you can't tell which licks until you hear both stories. What was it about, anyway?” “He lied about you, Uncle Ike, and I choked him until he said 'peunk,' and then I let him up, but he wouldn't apologize, and said he would leave it to you, if what he said was true or not, and here he comes now,” and the red-headed boy opened the door and ushered in a boy about his own size, with two black eyes and a piece peeled off his cheek, and one arm in a sling. “Which is Jeffries?” asked Uncle Ike, as he filled his pipe, and looked over the two companions who had been scrapping. [Illustration: Which is Jeffries 63] “He is Jeffries,” said the visitor, “and I am Fitzsimmons, but I want to have another go at him, unless we leave it to arbitration,” and the boy looked at the red-headed boy with blood in his eye, and at Uncle Ike with a look of no particular admiration. “Well, what was the cause of the row?” said Uncle Ike, as he took a chair between the two boys, lit his pipe, and smiled as he saw the marks of combat on their persons. “He said you used to be a drunkard, Uncle Ike, and had been to the Keeley cure, and I called him a liar, and then we mixed up.” “That's about the size of it,” said the other boy; “now, which was right?” Uncle Ike smoked up and filled the room so it looked like camping out and cooking over a fire made of wet wood, and thought a long time, and looked very serious, and the red-headed boy could see they were in for a talk. Finally the old man said: