second outfit of new sweaters and hat bands that year.

Aunt Mary wrote him a letter upon the occasion of his new start in life,
Mr. Stebbins delivered him a lecture, and things went smoothly in
consequence for three whole weeks. I say three whole weeks because three
whole weeks was a long time for the course of Jack’s life to flow
smoothly. At the end of a fortnight affairs were always due to run more
rapidly and three weeks produced, as a general thing, some species of
climax.

The climax in this case came to time as usual his evil genius inciting the
young man to attempt, one very dark night, the shooting of a cat which he
thought he saw upon the back fence. Whether he really had seen a cat or
not mattered very little in the later development of the matter. He was
certainly successful as far as the going off of the gun was concerned, but
the damage that resulted, resulted not to any cat, but to the arm of a
next-door’s cook, who was peacefully engaged in taking in her week’s wash
on the other side of the fence. The cook ceased abruptly to take in the
wash, the affair was at once what is technically termed looked into, and
three days later Jack became the defendant in a suit for damages.

Naturally Mr. Stebbins was at once notified and he had no choice except to
write Aunt Mary.

Aunt Mary was somewhat less patient over the third escapade than she had
been with the first two.

The letter found her alone with Lucinda and she read it to herself three
times and then read it aloud to her companion. Lucinda, whose thorough
knowledge of the imperious will and impervious eardrums of her mistress