Jim obeyed and presently the General's friend went out. "Now, my boy," said the General, walking back to the stove, "what did you mean by following me?" Little Jim's blue eyes looked up into the blue eyes of the old soldier. "Our eyes is the same color," he thought. And then he answered: "My mother told me to be makin' a pattern out of you. She told the same to Pat and Mike, too, and I'm goin' to do it better than they do, see if I don't. Why, they don't walk fine and straight like you do. But I can do it. I larned this morning." The General laughed. "And what were you peering in at the window for?" "Sure and I wanted to be watchin' your face, so I did. 'Tis my mother as says I'm the born fighter, and she says, 'Look at the General. Does he be goin' round fightin' in times of peace? That he don't.' And she wants me to be like you and I'm goin' to be." "What's your name?" "Jim." "Well, Jim, I don't think your mother meant that you should follow me through the street and try to walk like me. And you must not do so any more." "But I knows how now, sir," objected Jim, who was loth to discard his new accomplishment. "Nevertheless you must not follow me about and imitate my movements any more," forbade the General. "And how am I to be like you then, if you won't let me do the way you do?" For a moment the General seemed perplexed. Then he opened the door and motioned Jim out. "Ask your mother," he said. "I won't," declared little Jim obstinately, when he found himself in the street. "I won't ask her." But he did. The coasting was excellent on a certain hill, and the hill was only a short distance northwest of the O'Callaghan home. "'Twill do Andy good to have a bit of a change and eat wanst of a supper he ain't cooked," the widow had said. And so it was that she was alone, save for Larry, when Jim came in after school. Presently the whole affair of the morning came out, and Mrs. O'Callaghan listened with horrified ears. "And do you know how that looked to them that seen you?" she asked severely. "Sure and it looked loike you was makin' fun of the Gineral." "But I wasn't," protested little Jim. "Sure and don't I know that? Would a b'y of mine be makin' fun of Gineral Brady?" "He said I wasn't to do it no more," confided little Jim humbly. The widow nodded approbation. "And what did you say then?" she asked. "I says to him, 'How can I get to be like you, sir, when you won't let me do the way you do?'" "And then?" "Then he opened the door, and his hand said, 'Go outside.' And just as I was goin' he said, 'Ask your mother.'"