The Bad BoyMr. Herbert Watts with his dog

Antonio, called commonly Tony,walked into the park, Tony trottingleisurely at the end of his leash. Hewas a small dog of heterogeneousbreed. One grandfather was knownto be a full-blooded Irish terrier, butthe rest of his grandparents werecommon dogs. Despite his question-able family tree, Antonio was a re-markable dog, according to theWatts's. Mrs. Watts had just fin-ished a new red sweater for Tony,and the air being chilly on this par-ticular day, he was wearing it for thefirst time.Behind Tony walked Mr. Watts

duck-fashion, that is-toes out andarches flat against the bottoms of hisshoes. He liked the nip in the air,for it made him feel younger and heliked the park, for it had a "healthy"atmosphere. He often saw a friend.He knew many of the children whoplayed in the park, too. Sometimeshe gave them nickels. He didn't seeany of them today. Once in a while(he never told Alberta this) he madethe acquaintance of some beggarlylooking fellow, perhaps a transient.One day he had even given one ofthese fellows five dollars-a very de-serving and intelligent fellow, whohad had bad luck.

Mr. Watts kept his quick blue eyesalert to see what he could see. Hewas feeling chipper, almost sentim-ental. With Tony's leash occupyingone hand and a well turned-out caneswinging along in the other, he didnot tip his bowler hat to the police-man by the fountain, but he spokegenially. Mr. Watts had always ad-mired uniforms and manly figures.On days when he felt a trifle bold-

er than usual, Mr. Watts always worehis favoite bow tie. It was a powderblue with white polka dots. His niece,an art teacher, had sent it to him the

MARGARET KENDALLChristmas past, and she had success-fully matched his blue eyes. He waswearing the tie today, ,Just then Tony ran forward jerk-

ing the leash almost out of Mr.Watts' hand and almost pulling Mr.Watts off his balance. He was an- 1',~ous to run after a squirrel scurr- _ 'Ii (Img up the oak tree a few feet ahead f \,of them."Tony," admonished Mr. Watts,

"that squirrel isn't as big as you are,and you really shouldn't b~ unfair.Besides, you might have a little con-sideration for my arm. Corne alonghere." ,Tony planted his _four feet firmly

in the dirt and contmued ~o bark 3.Jthe squirrel, which had dlsappear.eby this time. Mr. Watts dragged hima foot or so and then he picked upthe barking imp and walked downthe path, dog in arm. . .When the treed squirrel was at a

safe distance, Mr. Watts put Tonydown brushed the red woolen part-icles 'and white h.airs from hiS darkcoat and walked jauntilyon.There were practically' no peopl~

in the park comparing that day Wita midsummer day. One was then! on .:a bench one here, but only a el'iOnly th~ dark oak leaves were t~~on the trees, and he wlshe~ Y ''----__

ld f II they looked so foohsh. A~. <..,wou a, . H ' hed Itbut the air was nice I. e WI~ coldwould snow, though Itwa~n f okedenough for that .. The par 0pretty, covered Wlt~ snow., f theTony was behavmg well, or di d

moment. Mr. Watts hoped they !hn't meet any other dogs, for the Ins

. . T ade him love toterner m ony m didscrap. The size of the other dog 1-n't matter-hound, bulldog, 01' chow.At the next division of the path,

Mr. Watts stopped and debatedwhich way to go. Finally he tun~edleft. The shrubbery had grow.n highand thick along the sides of this path,

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and it wound first to the right and I

then to the left again. There theshrubbery ended, and Mr. Wattscame, to one of the loveliest parts ofthe park. It was a large open spacewhere the grass grew its greenest-in tile summertime. Here and therewere clumps of bushes artisticallyarranged, and several large elm treescompleted the scene.Here were three benches, as Mr.

Watts saw it that day. One was tothe left of the path, and sitting therewas a young man reading a news-paper.The other two benches were a

little .to the right of the path and a-bout thirty feet ahead of Mr. Watts,who had stopped at the other end ofth~ shrubbery. These two bencheswere back to back, and sitting onthe far one at one end, their backs tohim, were a young man and a younggirl who w~re undoubtedly very muchinterested m each, other. The youngman was, sitting very close to her,his arm around her shoulders. Theywere talking quietly.On seeing the romantic couple a-

head of him, Mr. Watts smiled alittle.' Then he remembered the littlebook' of poetry he had impulsivelytaken from the bookcase to read inthe park. Poetry seemed the verything to catch his over-flowing ex-huberance today and his delight inthe romantic,In order not to disturb the boy and

girl, he pu~led To~y quietly .back tohim and' picked him up agam. Try-ing to appear as though he did notsee them, he proceeded to the emptybel1ch and sat down at the end near-est him, and the end farthest fromthe lovers.Mr. Watts felt a little guilty when

the young fellow withdrew his armfrom the girl's shoulders, and whentheir conversatiori ceased. 'He wasafraid for a moment that they would

move, but paying no apparent at-tention to them, he put Tony downand slipped the handle of the leashover his wrist. From the inside pock-et of his coat he took some heavyrimmed spectacles and. set them uponhis nose. From the outside pocket ofhis overcoat he took the small vol-ume.He thumbed over a few pages,

found a selection to his liking, andsettled down to read it, "Maud ,Mul-ler." During the first four lines no-thing happened. Though he tried,he could not get interested in thepoem. His interest was in the ro-mance at the other end of the bench.Although to the boy and girl Mr.

Watts must have seemed deep in aliterary study-if they gave him muchthought-he was, in reality, sittingwith ears alert to all that might beheard in his vicinity. Mr. Wattsfought insincerely against it, but hisear insisted on telling him that thearm was being replaced, and hecaught these words:"Gosh, Dotty"-that was all he

could hear. The .words were spokenat a very low pitch, and just thenT~)11ybegat; to scratch violently, rat-tling the license tag on his collarMr. yv atts could do nothing, but h~certamly was provoked.When To~y at last relaxed, he

h~ard the girl, Dotty, saying, "ButJimmy, you know how Mother wouldstorm if she knew I met you heretoday. She wouldn't let me out of hersight for weeks if she knew it. I do1-."Here Mr. Watts large cane clat-

tered to the ground, banging againstthe bench on its way. The placidgentleman in the powder blue tiecame near to swearing under hisbreath. He retrieved the confoundedthing and buried himself in the, sadtale of the Judge and Maud, but not

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for long. In fact, he read three wholeverses arid didn't read a word. Bythat time he was again concentrat-ing on the words of the lovers."As soon as school is out in June,"

Jimmy was saying, "I'll have thatjob that Taylor promised me, and wecould get along. If only-.,'"How-do-you-do, Mr. Watts," a

clear feminine voice shouted at him."Isn't this a lovely day?-Hello, youcute little dickens, you."Mr. Watts raised his head quickly.

"Oh, how-do-you-do Mrs. Hendrick-son. Yes, it is." He rose and tippedhis hat with difficulty, consideringhis encumbrances."I missed your wife at the Bright

Hour Luncheon today. Is she ill?""No, she's well, thank you.""Tell her she just must come to

see me quite soon, will you?""Yes, of course." Mrs. Hendrick-

son's loud voice rang in his earseven as she walked on. He sighedand sat again. It was a moment be-fore his cars became tuned aeain to

b

hear the low pitch, before he couldhear anything more of the privateaffairs of two youngsters in love.Ah, funny, the things love made ayoung chap do. He knew IHe turned his eyes as far in their

direction as he could without turninghi? head. He couldn't see anythingbut the red shoulder of the girl's coat,half hidden by the tan sleeve of theboy's jacket."Ah heck, Dotty. Why does your

mother have to pick out a lemon likethat? I think you even like him your-self."

could like him if I knew he was inIndia. Tell me you hate him. Youreally do, don't you?""Let's talk about you, Jimmy. You

can be awfully sweet when you wantto be.""What do you mean when I want

to be?" His voice was gruffly tender.Mr. Watts felt a flush rise to his

face. He recalled a moment years ago,when he had sat on a stile over afence dividing two farms. The be-witching, lovely girl beside him hadsaid that very thing to him. "You canbe awfully sweet when you want tobe." Funny, he couldn't imagine hiswife saying anything like that now.He chuckled aloud.

"Jimmy, how can you sayBut he is good looking.""Don't tease me honey. I

that?-

At the sound of his own voice hesat up suddenly-ashamed, guilty.The full weight of his intrusion set-tled on him. He straightened a greyglove, rose quickly, and-At the same moment Tony spied

a strange terrier on the other sideof the path. He made a furious dashfor the enemy, pulling his embarrass-ed and flustered master after him.Mr. Watts spent his next few

moments disentangling Tony andkeeping himself from being bitten.Then with a struggling dog wearinga war-torn sweater; a book, and acane, he made as graceful an· exit aswas possible. He didn't turn to seeif the boy and girl were'watching.He didn't scold T'011y.·He.disappear-ed around thev shrubbery+ borderedpath."Herbert !"exClaimed' Mrs. Watts

as she opened the door for him."Horne so. soon ?"."Tony," said Mr. Watts solemnly

shaking his finger at the ragged dog,"has been a very bad boy."guess I