“You haven’t thought of brother Daniel—­”

True; for nobody ever had, in connection with the active employments of life.

“No, Billy,” I replied, “I forgot him; but then, you know, Daniel is more of a student than a business man, and—­”

“O Uncle Teddy! you don’t think I mean he’d support them?  I meant I’d have to take care of father and mother, and him too, when they’d all got to be old people together.  Just think!  I’m eleven, and he’s twenty-two so he is just twice as old as I am.  How old are you?”

“Forty, Billy, last August.”

“Well, you aren’t so awful old, and when I get to be as old as you, Daniel will be eighty.  Seth Kendall’s grandfather isn’t more than that, and he has to be fed with a spoon, and a nurse puts him to bed, and wheels him round in a chair like a baby.  That takes the stamps, I bet!  Well, I’ll tell you how I’ll keep my accounts; I’ll have a stick, like Robinson Crusoe, and every time I make a toadskin I’ll gouge a piece out of one side of the stick, and every time I spend one I’ll gouge a piece out of the other.”

“Spend a what?” said the gentle and astonished voice of my sister Lu, who, unperceived, had slipped into the room.

“A toadskin, ma,” replied Billy, shutting up Colburn with a farewell glance of contempt.

“Dear, dear!  Where does the boy learn such horrid words?”

“Why, ma, don’t you know what a toadskin is?  Here’s one,” said Billy, drawing a dingy five-cent stamp from his pocket.  “And don’t I wish I had lots of ’em!”

“Oh!” sighed his mother, “to think I should have a child so addicted to slang!  How I wish he were like Daniel!”

“Well, mother,” replied Billy, “if you wanted two boys just alike you’d oughter had twins.  There ain’t any use of my trying to be like Daniel now, when he’s got eleven years the start.  Whoop!  There’s a dog-fight; hear ’em!  It’s Joe Casey’s dog,—­I know his bark!”

With these words my nephew snatched his Glengarry bonnet from the table and bolted downstairs to see the fun.

“What will become of him?” said Lu, hopelessly; “he has no taste for any thing but rough play; and then such language as he uses!  Why isn’t he like Daniel?”

“I suppose because his Maker never repeats himself.  Even twins often possess strongly marked individualities.  Don’t you think it would be a good plan to learn Billy better before you try to teach him?  If you do, you’ll make something as good of him as Daniel though it will be rather different from that model.”

“Remember, Ned, that you never did like Daniel as well as you do Billy.  But we all know the proverb about old maid’s daughters and old bachelor’s sons.  I wish you had Billy for a month,—­then you’d see.”

“I’m not sure that I’d do any better than you.  I might err as much in other directions But I’d try to start right by acknowledging that he was a new problem, not to be worked without finding out the value of X in his particular instance.  The formula which solves one boy will no more solve the next one than the rule-of-three will solve a question in calculus,—­or, to rise into your sphere, than the receipt for one-two-three-four cake will conduct you to a successful issue through plum-pudding.”