Two days later the woman called again, and this was the conversation:
“Better?”
“Well. Fee?”
“Nothing!” exclaimed the doctor. “Most sensible woman I ever met!”
Visitor—“Well, Harold, what are you going to be when you grow up?”
Harold—“Oh, I’m going to be a sailor; but baby’s only going to be just an ordinary father.”
No amount of persuasion or punishment could keep Johnnie from running away. The excitement of being pursued and of being brought back to a tearful family appealed to his sense of the dramatic and offset the slight discomfort that sometimes followed.
Finally his mother determined upon a new method. She decided, after many misgivings, that the next time Johnnie ran away no notice whatever should be taken of it. He should stay away as long as he pleased and return when he saw fit.