UNCLE EZRA PAYS A VISIT--UNCLE EZRA CAUSES THE BAD BOY TO BACKSLIDE--UNCLE EZRA AND THE OLD MAN WERE BAD PILLS--THEIR RECORD IS AWFUL--KEEPING UNCLE EZRA ON THE RAGGED EDGE--THE BED SLATS FIXED--THE OLD MAN TANGLED UP--THIS WORLD IS NOT RUN RIGHT--UNCLE EZRA MAKES HIM TIRED. “I hear your Uncle Ezra is here on a visit,” said the grocery man to the bad boy. “I suppose you have been having a high old time. There is nothing that does a boy more good than to have a nice visit with a good uncle, and hear him tell about old times when he and the boy's father were boys together.” “Well, I don't know about it,” said the boy, as he took a stick of maccaroni, and began to blow paper wads through it at a wood sawyer, who was filing a saw outside the door. “When a boy who has been tough has got his pins all set to reform, I don't think it does him any good to have a real nice Uncle come to the house visiting. Anyway, that's my experience. I have backslid the worst way, and it is going to take me a month after Uncle Ezra goes away to climb up to the grace that I have fallen from. It is darn discouraging,” said the boy as he looked up to the ceiling in an innocent sort of a way, and hid the macarroni under his coat when the wood sawyer, who had been hit in the neck, dropped his saw and got up mad. “What's the trouble? Your uncle has the reputation where he lives, of being one of the pillars of society. But you can't tell about these fellows when they get away from home. Does he drink?”