that's all. You see, once when I was a kid—" he stopped.
"Go on," said Bess.
"Oh, I don't want to bore you with the 'story of my life,'" he said.
"Go on," said Bess.
"Well, I was only eight years old, and one evening I was out in front of the house, fooling around with a rope. It was an old clothes-line—I don't know where I got it; but I was just fooling with it, and I thought it would be fun to tie the dog up to the hitching-post and play he was a horse. The post was holding still and the dog wasn't, and so I tied one end of the rope to the post and took the other end and started after the dog. I chased him across the street and had just got him by the collar, when along came a man on a bicycle, and it was dusk, and he didn't see the rope, and pitched over it. It broke his machine all to pieces and smashed him up some, and I was scared to death and hid behind a tree. He was the maddest man you ever saw,—and then the dog began to bark and that gave me away, and he came over and grabbed me and asked me where I lived. I told him; but I was too scared to say anything
