A small group of boys, perhaps a half dozen, ranging in age from twelve to sixteen years, moved quietly up a side street and approached the business quarter of the city. If they had been in mischief the evidences of it were not visible among them. If they contemplated mischief, only a reader of minds could have discovered that fact.
It was past midnight. Few people were abroad. A loitering policeman stopped at a street-corner as the boys went by and carelessly scanned the group. They were not openly violating any law nor breaking any city ordinance, therefore it was not his duty to interfere with their proper use of the highway, nor to investigate their proposed activities. So he swung his club back against his forearm, hummed under his breath a tune that he used to know as a boy, and went placidly on about his business. But if he had been suspicious, and had stealthily followed them, he might have seen something that would have aroused within him a measure of zeal in the performance of his undeniable duties. For, passing down the main street of the city, not three blocks distant from the corner where they had met the guardian of the public peace, these young American citizens came to a cobbler’s shop on the door-casing of which hung a board sign inscribed with the words:
“Puppies for Sale Here.”
“That sign,” said Halpert McCormack, the apparent leader of the group, “ought to come down. In my opinion a cobbler has no business to be selling puppies. ‘Shoemaker, stick to your last!’ That’s a proverb we parsed in Miss Buskin’s class this morning. What do you say, fellows?”
“Sure it ought to come down,” was the immediate and unanimous response.
“Besides,” added Little Dusty, the youngest boy in the company, “his puppies is no good anyway. My cousin Joe bought one off of him last week, and he can’t even bark yet.”
One member of the group, inclined to be facetious, inquired:
“Who can’t bark? Joe or the dog?”
“Neither one of ’em,” was the quick reply. “But the puppy’s got fleas an’ Joe ain’t.”
“That settles it,” said Hal McCormack, gravely. “A man that will sell puppies with fleas on ’em deserves no consideration from us.”