telling Pa he was a bald headed old fool but Pa didn't retaliate--he is too much of a gentleman to talk back in company. All he said was that a woman who is old enough to have delegates sawed off on to her ought to have sense enough to tell her husband, and then they all drifted off into conversation about the convention and the boxing match, and everything was all right on the surface; but after breakfast, when the delegates went to the convention, I noticed Pa went right down town and bought a new slop-jar and some more plants. Pa and Ma didn't speak all the forenoon, and I guess they wouldn't up to this time only Ma's bonnet came home from the milliner's and she had to have some money to pay for it. Then she called Pa 'pet,' and that settled it. When Ma calls Pa 'pet,' that is twenty-five dollars. 'Dear, old darling,' means fifty dollars. But, say, those christian young men do a heap of good, don't they. Their presence seems to make people better. Some boys down by the store were going to tie a can on a dog's tail, yesterday, and somebody said 'here comes the Christian Association,' and those bad boys let the dog go. They tried to find the dog after the crowd had got by, but the dog knew his business. Well, I must go down and charge the soda fountain for a picnic that is expected from the country.” “Hold on a minute,” said the grocery man as he wound a piece of brown paper around a cob and stuck it in a syrup jug he had just filled for a customer, and then licked his fingers. “I want to ask you a question. What has caused you to change so from being bad. You were about as bad as they make 'em, up to a few weeks ago, and now you seem to have a soul, and get in your work doing good about as well as any boy in town. What is it that ails you?”