late grandfather's immense, solemnly ticking watch,
was to take a new path of action. Johnny suddenly
developed the prominent Trumbull trait, but in his
case it was inverted. Johnny, as became a boy of
his race, took an excursion into the past, but instead
of applying the present to the past, as was the
tendency of the other Trumbulls, he forcibly applied
the past to the present. He fairly plastered the
past over the exigencies of his day and generation
like a penetrating poultice of mustard, and the
results were peculiar.

Johnny, being bidden of a rainy day during the
midsummer vacation to remain in the house, to
keep quiet, read a book, and be a good boy, obeyed,
but his obedience was of a doubtful measure of
wisdom.

Johnny got a book out of his uncle Jonathan Trum-
bull's dark little library while Jonathan was walking
sedately to the post-office, holding his dripping
umbrella at a wonderful slant of exactness, without
regard to the wind, thereby getting the soft drive
of the rain full in his face, which became, as it
were, bedewed with tears, entirely outside any
cause of his own emotions.

Johnny probably got the only book of an anti-
orthodox trend in his uncle's library. He found
tucked away in a snug corner an ancient collection