“Well, great Julius Cæsar's bald-headed ghost, what's the matter with you?” said the grocery man to the bad boy, as he came into the grocery on crutches, with one arm in a sling, one eye blackened, and a strip of court plaster across his face “Where was the explosion, or have you been in a fight, or has your Pa been giving you what you deserve, with a club? Here, let me help you; there, sit down on that keg of apple-jack. Well, by the great guns, you look as though you had called somebody a liar. What's the matter?” and the grocery man took the crutches and stood them up against the show case. “O, there's not much the matter with me,” said the boy, in a voice that sounded all broke up, as he took a big apple off a basket, and began peeling it with his upper front teeth. “If you think I am a wreck, you ought to see the minister. They had to carry him home in installments, the way they buy sewing machines. I am all right; but they have got to stop him up with oakum and tar, before he will hold water again!” “Good gracious, you have not had a fight with the minister, have you? Well, I have said all the time, and I stick to it, that you would commit a crime yet, and go to state prison. What was the fuss about?” and the grocery man laid the hatchet out of the boy's reach for fear he would get excited and kill him. “O, I want no fuss, it was in the way of business. You see the livery man that I was working for promoted me. He let me drive a horse to haul sawdust for bedding, first, and when he found I was real careful he let me drive an express wagon to haul trunks. Day before yesterday, I think it was--yes, I was in bed all day yesterday--day before yesterday there was a funeral, and our stable furnished the outfit. It was only a common, eleven dollar funeral, so they let me go to drive the horse for the minister--you know, the buggy that goes ahead of the hearse. They gave me an old horse that is thirty years old, that has not been off of a walk since nine years ago, and they told me to give him a loose rein, and he would go along all right. It's the same old horse that used to pace so fast on the avenue, years ago, but I didn't know it. Well, I wan't to blame. I just let him walk along as though he was hauling sawdust, and gave him a loose rein. When we got off of the pavement, the fellow that drives the hearse, he was in a hurry, 'cause his folks was going to have ducks for dinner, and he wanted to get back, so he kept driving along side of my buggy, and telling me to hurry up. I wouldn't do it, 'cause the livery man told me to walk the horse. Then the minister, he got nervous, and said he didn't know as there was any use of going so slow, because he wanted to get back in time to get his lunch and go to a minister's meeting in the afternoon, but I told him we would all get to the cemetery soon enough if we took it cool, and as for me I wasn't in no sweat. Then one of the drivers that was driving the