The Grocery Man and Peck's Bad Boy

CHAPTER II.

HIS PA PLAYS JOKES--A MAN SHOULDN'T GET MAD AT A JOKE--THE MAGIC BOUQUET--THE GROCERY MAN TAKES A TURN--HIS PA TRIES THE BOUQUET AT CHURCH--ONE FOR THE OLD MAID--A FIGHT ENSUES-- THE BAD BOY THREATENS THE GROCERY MAN--A COMPROMISE.

"Say, do you think a little practical joke does any hurt," asked the bad boy of the grocery man, as he came in with his Sunday suit on, and a bouquet in his button-hole, and pried off a couple of figs from a new box that had been just opened.

"No sir," said the groceryman, as he licked off the syrup that dripped from a quart measure, from which he had been filling a jug. "I hold that a man who gets mad at a practical joke, that is, one that does not injure him, is a fool, and he ought to be shunned by all decent people. That's a nice bouquet you have in your coat. What is it, pansies? Let me smell of it," and the grocery man bent over in front of the boy to take a whiff at the bouquet.