THE WOULDBEGOODS
ognize the description unerringly. "Well, well—boys will be boys—girls, I mean. I won't be angry. Look at all the 'jugs' and see if you can find yours."
Alice did—and the next one she looked at she said, "This is one"—and two jugs further on she said, "This is the other."
"Well," the President said, "these are certainly the specimens which I obtained yesterday. If your uncle will call on me I will return them to him. But it's a disappointment. Yes. I think you must let me look inside."
He did. And at the first one he said nothing. At the second he laughed.
"Well, well," he said, "we can't expect old heads on young shoulders. You're not the first who went forth to shear and returned shorn. Nor, it appears, am I. Next time you have a Sale of Antiquities, take care that you yourself are not 'sold.' Good-day to you, my dear. Don't let the incident prey on your mind," he said to Alice. "Bless your heart, I was a boy once myself, unlikely as you may think it. Good-bye."
We were in time to see the pigs bought, after all.
I asked Alice what on earth it was she'd scribbled inside the beastly jugs, and she owned that just to make the lark complete she had written "Sucks" in one of the jugs, and "Sold again, silly," in the other.
But we know well enough who it was that was
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