seven years old, who was playing with a tassel that hung from one of
the window-blinds, to the imminent danger of its destruction.

The boy did not seem to hear, but kept on fingering the tassel.

"Let that be, I tell you! Must I speak a hundred times? Why don't
you mind at once?"

The child slowly relinquished his hold of the tassel, and commenced
running his hand up and down the venitian blind.

"There! there! Do for gracious sake let them blinds alone. Go 'way
from the window this moment, and try and keep your hands off of
things. I declare! you are the most trying child I ever saw."

Tom left the window and threw himself at full length into the
cradle, where he commenced rocking himself with a force and rapidity
that made every thing crack again.

"Get out of that cradle! What do you mean? The child really seems
possessed!" And the mother caught him by the arm and jerked him from
the cradle.

Tom said nothing, but, with the most imperturbable air in the world,
walked twice around the room, and then pushing a chair up before the
dressing-bureau, took therefrom a bottle of hair lustral, and,
pouring the palm of his little hand full of the liquid, commenced
rubbing it upon his head. Twice had this operation been performed,
and Tom was pulling open a drawer to get the hair-brush, when the
odour of the oily compound reached the nostrils of the lad's mother,