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 home at eleven and went to bed. I supposed that the circus had proved too alluring for Rufe, and that he had succumbed to it, concert and all; but I meant to give him a lecture on general business principles in the morning.

“Just after Morpheus had got both my shoulders to the shuck mattress I hears a houseful of unbecoming and ribald noises like a youngster screeching with green-apple colic. I opens my door and calls out in the hall for the widow lady, and when she sticks her head out, I says: ‘Mrs. Peevy, ma’am, would you mind choking off that kid of yours so that honest people can get their rest?’

“‘Sir,’ says she, ‘it’s no child of mine. It’s the pig squealing that your friend Mr. Tatum brought home to his room a couple of hours ago. And if you are uncle or second cousin or brother to it, I’d appreciate your stopping its mouth, sir, yourself, if you please.’

“I put on some of the polite outside habiliments of external society and went into Rufe’s room. He had gotten up and lit his lamp, and was pouring some milk into a tin pan on the floor for a dingy-white, half-grown, squealing pig.

“‘How is this, Rufe?’ says I. ‘You flimflammed in your part of the work to-night and put the game 227