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190 this journey wonderfully well," went on Walter, sarcastically. "If he was in a half-dime novel, he would find a gun with ammunition whenever he wanted it, and a matchbox with matches, and furnish himself with all he wanted to eat and to drink, and run across a deserted house with dry clothing and a lot of good things—"

"And then fall in with the savages and have 'em make him their king and show him a mine full o' gold an' diamonds," concluded Si, with a short laugh. "I read one of them yarns once. It was called 'Lalapo Joe, the Boy King o' the South Sea Islanders.' I jest got to where the boy king had found the diamonds and gold and sighted a friendly sail to take him home when my dad came out in the woodshed where I was reading, tore up the novel, and give me the most all-fired wollopin' you ever heard on, and then made me saw wood fer two hours afterward. By ginger, but thet was a dose, Walter, you jest believe me! But I reckon it did me some good, for I never took no stock in them novels afterwards."

Walter burst into a roar; he could not help it, Si's confession was such a comical one. "I guess we've all been through the mill," he said, when he could speak. "I remember I was once reading a