"Oh!" sighed his mother, "to think I should have a child so addicted to slang! How I wish he were like Daniel!"
"Well, mother," replied Billy, "if you wanted two boys just alike you'd oughter had twins. There ain't any use of my trying to be like Daniel now, when he's got eleven years the start. Whoop! There's a dog-fight; hear 'em! It's Joe Casey's dog,—I know his bark!"
With these words my nephew snatched his Glengarry bonnet from the table and bolted downstairs to see the fun.
"What will become of him?" said Lu, hopelessly; "he has no taste for any thing but rough play; and then such language as he uses! Why isn't he like Daniel?"
"I suppose because his Maker never repeats himself. Even twins often possess strongly marked individualities. Don't you think it would be a good plan to learn Billy better before you try to teach him? If you do, you'll make something as good of him as Daniel though it will be rather different from that model."
"Remember, Ned, that you never did like Daniel as well as you do Billy. But we all know the proverb about old maid's daughters and old bachelor's sons. I wish you had Billy for a month,—then you'd see."
"I'm not sure that I'd do any better than you. I might err as much in other directions But I'd try to start right by acknowledging that he was a new problem, not to be worked without finding out the value of X in his particular instance. The formula which solves one boy will no more solve the next one than the rule-of-three will solve a question in calculus,—or, to rise into your sphere, than the receipt for one-two-three-four cake will conduct you to a successful issue through plum-pudding."
I excel in metaphysical discussion, and was about giving further elaboration to my favorite idea, when the door burst open. Master Billy came tumbling in with a torn jacket, a bloody nose, the trace of a few tears in his eyes, and the mangiest of cur dogs in his hands.
"Oh my! my!! my!!!" exclaimed his mother.
"Don't you get scared, ma!" cried Billy, smiling a stern smile of triumph; "I smashed the nose off him! He wont sass me again for nothing this while! Uncle Teddy, d'ye know it wasn't a dog-fight, after all? There was that nasty, good-for-nothing Joe Casey, 'n Patsy Grogan, and a lot of bad boys from Mackerelville; and they'd caught this poor little ki-oodle and tied a tin pot to his tail, and were trying to set Joe's dog on him, though he's ten times littler."