That Bad Boy.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1809, 9 February 1884, Page 2 (Supplement)

That Bad Boy.

" Ah, aii I you've got your deserts at last," said the grocery man to the bad boy, as he came in with one eye black, and his nose peeled on one side, and sat down on a board across the coal scuttle, aud began whistling as unconcerned as possible. "What's the matter with your eye ?" " Boy tried to gouge it out without asking my consent," and the 'bad boy took a dried herring out of the box, and began peeling it. " He is in bed now, and his ma i 3 poulticing him, and she says he will be out about the last of next week. Say, did I tell you about pa and ma having trouble ? " "No; what's the row ?" 11 Well, you see, ma wants to economise all she can, and pa has been getting thinner since he quit drinking and reformed, and I have kept on growing until I am bigger than he i*. Funny, ain't it, that a boy should be bigger than his pa ? Pa wanted a new suit of clothes, and ma said Bhe would fix him, and so she took one of my old suits and made it over for pa, and he wore it a week before he knew it was an old suit made over. But one day ho found a handful of dried-up angle-worms in the pistol-pocket that I had forgot when I was fishing, and pa laid the angle-worms to ma, and ma had to explain that she made over one of my old suits for pa. He was mad, end took them off, threw them out of the back-window, and swore he would never humiliate himself by wearing his son's old clothes. Ma tried to reason with him but he was awful worked up, and said he was no old charity hospital, aud lie stormed around to find his old suit of clothes, but ma had sold them to a plaster-of-Paris imagepeddler, and pa hadn't anything to wear, and he wanted ma to go out in the alley and pick up the suit he threw out of the window, but a rag-man had picked them up, and was going away, and pa he grabbed a linen duster, and put it on, and went on after the rag-picker, and he run and pa after him, and the ragman told a policeman there was an escaped lunatic from the asylum, and he was chasing people all over the city, and the policeman took pa by the linen ulster and pulled it off, and he was a Bight when they took him to the police-station. Ma and me had to go down and bail him out, and the police lent us a tarpaulin to put over pa, and we got him liome, and ho is wearing his summer pants while the tailor makes him a new suit of clothes. I think pa is too excitable and too particular. I nover kicked on wearing pa's old clothes, and I think he ought to wear mine now." —Peck's Sun.