“He looked just like Pa when he tried to smile so as to get me to come up to him so he can lick me. The dog pawed his mouth a spell to get the teeth out, and then we gave him a bone with some meat on, and he began to gnaw the bone, and the teeth come off the plate, and he thought it was pieces of the bone, and he swallowed the teeth. My chum noticed it first, and he said we had got to get in our work pretty quick to save the plates, and I think we were in luck to save them. I held the dog, and my chum, who was better acquainted with him, untied the strings and got the gold plates out, but there were only two teeth left, and the dog was happy. He woggled his tail for more teeth, but we hadn't any more. I am going to give him Ma's teeth some day. My chum says when a dog gets an appetite for anything you have got to keep giving it to him or he goes back on you. But I think my chum played dirt on me. We sold the gold plates to a jewelry man, and my chum kept the money. I think, as long as I furnished the goods, he ought to have given me something besides the experience, don't you? After this I don't have no more partners, you bet.” All this time the boy was marking on a piece of paper, and soon after he went out the grocery man noticed a crowd outside, and on he found a sign hanging up which read: WORMY FIGS FOR PARTIES. CHAPTER VI. HIS PA AN ORANGEMAN--THE GROCERY MAN SHAMEFULLY ABUSED---HE GETS HOT--BUTTER, OLEOMARGARINE AND AXLE GREASE--THE OLD MAN WEARS ORANGE ON ST. PATRICK'S DAY--HE HAS TO RUN FOR HIS LIFE--THE BAD BOY AT SUNDAY SCHOOL--INGERSOLL AND BEECHER VOTED OUT--“MARY HAD A LITTLE LAM.” “Say, will you do me a favor,” asked the bad boy of the grocery man, as he sat down on the soap box and put his wet boots on the stove. “Well, y-e-s,” said the grocery man hesitatingly, with a feeling that he was liable to be sold. “If you will help me to catch the villain who hangs up those disreputable signs in front of my store, I will. What is it?” “I want you to lick this stamp and put it on this letter. It is to my girl, and I want to fool her,” and the boy handed over the letter and stamp, and while the grocery man was licking it and putting it on, the boy filled his pockets with dried peaches out of a box. “There, that's a small job,” said the grocery man, as he pressed the stamp on the letter with his thumb and handed it back. “But how are you going to fool her?”