"Good-evening, neighbor," he exclaimed. "I've brought your boy back." "Ah! Barker! Pray take a seat," replied Smithers, who, though he disliked the undertaker, was secretly afraid of him. "I can stand." "Sit down, I say; you're just in time for supper. Oysters from Fulton Market. First-class, I tell you." "No, no," said Barker. "I only came here with Tommy because he was afraid to come alone. You won't lick him, now?" "I don't see what you have to do with it, really, Barker." "He did not understand about cutting up the wood." "That is the trouble of it; he never will understand," replied Smithers, with a complacent smile. "He's a good boy enough, and he and my Charley get along together first rate." "Stay to supper, and we'll talk this thing over." "Well, I don't mind if I do, though it's more for Tommy's sake than for anything else," answered Barker. "Tommy, our neighbor is right," said his father. "You probably did not mean to do wrong, and I will not whip you this time. Now, you can go down to your mother and see if there is anything you can do in the preparation of supper." "Yes, sir, certainly, sir," responded Tommy, his face beaming with smiles, as he saw that Barker had got him off the thrashing he expected. His father kept a rattan in the corner of the room, which he devoted to Tommy's sole use, it never being employed upon the favored persons of Harold Stamford and Alice Regina. "Now, Smithers," said Barker, "you ought to let up on that boy." "Why should I, when he's the fool of the family?" "He can't help it." "Will you admit he's a fool?" "I guess he's a little soft, that's all, and your severity makes him no better." "Oh, pshaw!" said Smithers. "Spare the rod and spoil the child." "That's played out." "Since when?" "Long ago. Try kindness." Mr. Smithers grew rather red in the face. "I have every respect for you," he remarked, looking sideways at the stove. "But I don't see why you should interfere with my family affairs." "Because I like the lad. Why don't you apprentice him to some one?" "To whom?" "To me, if you like. I'll take him." Mr. Smithers laughed in a tremulous manner. "What!" he exclaimed. "Apprentice him to an undertaker?" "Why not? You might require his services sooner than you expect. If ours is not such a respectable trade as the dry-goods business, we are as much in request as you are. You clothe the living, we clothe the dead." "I couldn't hear of such a thing," replied Smithers. "Besides, the boy hasn't finished his schooling. He knows nothing." Tommy re-entered the room and spread a snow-white cloth over the table. "There's a little man," said Barker, encouragingly. "What a nice tablecloth." "'Tain't a tablecloth," replied Tommy. "It's a sheet. Mother says the clothes ain't out of the wash yet." Mr. Smithers looked disgusted. "Didn't I tell you he was a fool?" he exclaimed. "He's only simple," replied Barker.