“Well, I am going to,” said the boy, as he picked the herring bones out of his teeth with a piece of a match that he sharpened with his knife.  “But I don’t believe in borrowing trouble about a step-father so long before hand.  I don’t think Ma could get a man to step into Pa’s shoes, as long as I lived, not if she was inlaid with diamonds, and owned a brewery.  There are brave men, I know, that are on the marry, but none of them would want to be brevet father to a cherubim like me, except he got pretty good wages.  And then, since Pa was dissected he is going to lead a different life, and I guess I will make a man of him, if he holds out.  We got him to join the Good Templars last night.”

“No, you don’t tell me,” said the grocery man, as he thought that his trade in cider for mince pies would be cut off.  “So you got him into the Good Templars, eh?”

“Well, he thinks he has joined the Good Templars, so it is all the same.  You see my chum and me have been going to a private gymnasium, on the west side, kept by a Dutchman, and in the back room he has all the tools for getting up muscle.  There, look at my arm,” said the boy, as he rolled up his sleeve and showed a muscle about as big as an oyster.  “That is the result of training at the gymnasium.  Before I took lessons I hadn’t any more muscle than you have got.  Well, the Dutchman was going to a dance on the south side the other night, and he asked my chum to tend the gymnasium, and I told Pa if he would join the Good Templars that night there wouldn’t be many at the lodge, and he wouldn’t be so embarrassed, and as I was one of the officers of the lodge I would put it to him light, and he said he would go, so my chum got five other boys to help us put him through.  So we steered him down to the gymnasium and made him rap on the storm door outside, and I said ‘who comes there?’ and he said it was a pilgrim who wanted to jine our sublime order.  I asked him if he had made up his mind to turn from the ways of a hyena, and adopt the customs of the truly good, and he said if he knew his own heart he had, and then I told him to come in out of the snow and take off his pants.  He kicked a little at taking off his pants, because it was cold out there in the storm door dog house, but I told him they all had to do it.  The princes, potentates and paupers all had to come to it.  He asked me how it was when we initiated women, and I told him women never took that degree.  He pulled off his pants and wanted a check for them, but I told him the Grand Mogul would hold his clothes, and then I blind-folded him, and with a base ball club I pounded on the floor as I walked around the gymnasium, while the lodge, headed by my chum, sung, ‘We won’t go home till morning’ I stopped in front of the ice water tank, and said, ’Grand Worthy Duke, I bring before you a pilgrim who has drank of the dregs until his stomach won’t hold water, and who desires to swear off.’  The Grand Mogul asked me if he was worthy and well qualified, and I told him