of his danger, when his gentle parent nearly catches him round the water-butt outside the back door. Father and son are so well matched in agility and acuteness, that it seems as unlikely Larry will be caught as that the governor will permit him to escape. Unhappy Larry! he must have been mad to begin the contest. What would his sin of eating bread and cheese at eleven o'clock in the morning have been compared with leading the governor this impious dance? No doubt he knows his foolhardiness by now, and repents him of it. But, perhaps, he reflects that life is sweet, and the longer he can put off the evil hour of being caught, the better, so he doubles and dodges with renewed vigour.
"What is the matter?" asks mother, coming in, and glancing with amazement from papa's infuriated countenance to that of her miserable son, who is just peeping in with a ludicrous mixture of fear and bravado on his small face.
"Do you see that little devil, madam?" asks my father. "Do you know that he has been dodging me, me, for the last two hours? (Ten minutes he mean.) I'll break every bone in his skin when I catch him! and not one of these boobies (he points to us all standing about) can put out a hand to stop him! Stand at the foot of the staircase, and hold on to him when he comes past. Do you hear?"
And off he dashes through the kitchen, and round the water-butt this time. Poor mother, she is in a quandary! She is as utterly incapable of delivering the least deserving of her children up to the slaughter, as she is of disobeying her lord. So she meekly takes up her position where she was bid, and when Larry comes pelting in at the door, and hits her a smart blow with his head "below the belt," she puts out no detaining hand, but subsides into a comfortable heap on the mat; while the governor, entering in hot pursuit, catches his foot in her petticoats, and turns an energetic somersault over her prostrate form! Tableau
