Page 202 (2/2)

Andelse: old

Benja down-hill very rapidly

In certain ways he seemed better; he could talk--and swear--quite

fluently "He sayed to me, this mawnin'," Sier,' he sayed, 'in the nae?' He spoke out just as plain!" Siue, with the pride of aher baby's first word Then he simpered with a little vanity

of his own: "He was always one to noticein his bed with his hat on noticed other things

than Simmons's freckles, and spoke of theood boy He comes up every day Well, Lav-Lavendar,

sometimes I think I was--at fault?"

"I know you were, Benjamin Have you told him so?"

"Gad-a-mercy! N-no!" snarled the other "He would be too puffed up

Won't do topeople v-vain"

He "took notice," too, Simmons said, of the canaries; and he even

rolled out, staly, some of his favorite verses But, in spite

of all this, he was running down-hill; he knew it himself, and once he

told Dr Lavendar that this business of dying made a man narrow "I

th-think about it all the ti else It's da"