"I'm goin' to try for it," declared Jim with decision. "Them that would rather have cigars and such than a nice house like this can have 'em, and it's little sense they've got, too. I'll take the house." The General laughed. "You will take it, Jim, I don't doubt," he said. "Come to me whenever you wish to ask any questions, and I will answer them if I can." "I will, sir," replied little Jim. "And when you want me to I'll wash your dishes. I said once I wouldn't, but now I will." "Thank you, Jim," responded the General. Peppery, headstrong little Jim went home that night walking very erect. Pat and Mike were one on each side of him, but he hardly knew it, he was so busy looking forward to the time when he should have a house like the General's, when his mother would pin a flower on his coat, and he should give parties, and as many of them as he chose. [Illustration: "Pat and Mike were one on each side of him."] And of all these plans his mother heard with wonder and astonishment. "Your party's made a man of you, Jim," said the widow at last. "I'd niver have thought of a party doin' it, nayther, though I was wantin' it done bad. Your father was the man as loiked noice things, and he'd have got 'em, too, if sickness hadn't come to him." And now little Jim's reward had come. At last his mother had said he was like his father. He was as good as Pat and Mike and Andy, and his heart swelled. "But, Jim, dear, you'd be gettin' your house quicker if we was all to help toward it." "And then 'twouldn't be mine," objected Jim. "No more it wouldn't," assented Mrs. O'Callaghan, "but 'twould be better than livin' in the shanty years and years. You don't want to kape livin' here till you have a foine house loike the Gineral's, do you, Jim?" "No," reluctantly answered the little fellow, glancing about him. "I knowed you didn't. For sure you're not the wan to let your ambition run away with your sinse. A neat little house, now, with only two b'ys to a bedroom and wan bedroom for me--what do you say to it, Jim?" Then and there it was settled, and that night each boy had a different dream about the neat little house to be--Jim's, of course, being the most extravagant. That week the first five dollars toward it was deposited with the General. "And I'll be keepin' a sharp lookout on Barney and Tommie," was Jim's unasked promise to his mother. "You've no idea what little chaps smoke them cigarettes. I can fix it. I'll just be lettin' the boys know that every wan of 'em that helps Barney and Tommie to wan of them things will get a lickin' from me." "Is that the best way, do you think, Jim?" "Sure and I know it is. I've seen them big boys givin' 'em to the little wans, particular to them as their folks don't want to use 'em. The General's down on them things, and Barney and Tommie shan't have 'em."