snowball he had cast with the most innocent of intentions had gone
through a window or a milk wagon or somebody's silk hat. Or he had
pulled a small girl's hair, or taken the skates away from a helpless
urchin. He had bad luck too in picking victims with belligerent big
brothers.

Mr. Budlong recognized these desperado traits and he fully expected
Ulysses Junior to make him the father of a convict. Suddenly now
despair became hope. Let Mrs. Budlong capitalize her spats; he would
promote Ulie's. The affair Detwiller had turned out badly, but Mr.
Budlong would not yield to one defeat. He watched eagerly for the
next misdemeanor of his young hopeless. He relied on him to embroil,
as it were, all Europe in an international conflict.

But the dove of peace seemed to have alighted on Ulysses' shoulder.
He even began to go to Sunday School--the Methodist this year because
they had given the largest cornucopias in town the Christmas before.
And he talked nothing but Golden Texts till Mr. Budlong began to fear
that he would one day be the father of a parson.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Budlong grew bellicose again. She snubbed people
right and left, but they generously imputed it to absent-mindedness.
She failed to go to the dinner party the Teeples gave in her honor,
and she sent no excuse. This was the unpardonable sin in Carthage
and the Budlong chairs sat vacant through the dinner.

But Mrs. Teeple graciously assumed that she was ill and sent over the
cut flowers off the table. And she hoped the poor dear would feel
better soon.