more of this matter.

John Flutter, Senior

[71]

"Respectfully,

"William Black, Attorney-at-Law,

"William Black

"Pennyville, N. Y."

"Oh, father!" I cried, "I swear to you this is not my fault!" Looking up in distress I saw that my parent was laughing.

"I have heard of Alvira before," said he; "no, it is not your fault, my poor boy. Let me see, Alvira was thirty twenty-one years ago when I was married to your ma. I used to be in Pennyville sometimes, in those days, and she was sweet on me, John, then. I'll answer this letter, and answer it to her, and not her lawyer. Don't you be uneasy, my son. I'll tend to her. But you had a narrow escape; I don't wonder you, with your bashfulness, fled homeward to your ma."

"Then it wasn't my blunder this time, father?"

"I exonerate you, my son!"

For once a glow of happiness diffused itself over my much-tried spirits. I was so exalted that when a young lady came in for a bottle of bandoline I gave her Spaulding's prepared glue instead; and the next time I met that young lady she wore a bang—she had used the new-fangled bandoline, and the only way to get the stuff out of her hair was to cut it off.

[72]

[72]

CHAPTER VIII.

HE ENACTS THE PART OF GROOMSMAN.

"Out of the frying-pan into the fire!" This should have been my chosen motto from the beginning. The performance of the maddening feat indicated in the proverb has been the principal business of my life. I am always finding myself in the frying-pan, and always flopping out into the fire. My father's interference saved me from the dreadful old creature into whose net I had stumbled when I fled from my native village, only to return with the certainty that I was unfit to cope with the world outside of 

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