.

THE EXPLORING TOUR.
After gently tossing the stick in his hand, like one who endeavors to ascertain its weight, Mickey smelled of it, and finally bit his teeth into it, with a very satisfactory result.
"Now, that's what I call lucky, as the old miser obsarved when he found he was going to save his dinner by dying in the forenoon.

Do you mind that shtick--big enough to sarve as a respictable shillalah at Donnybrook Fair?
Well, my laddy, that has done duty as a lantern in this very place." "As a torch, you mean ?" "Precisely; just heft it." As he tossed it into Fred's hand, the latter was astonished to note its weight.
"What's the cause of that ?" he inquired.
"It's a piece of pine, and its chuck full of pitch.

That's why it's so heavy.

It'll burn like the biggest kind of a candle, and me plan, me laddy, is to set that afire, and then start out to larn something about this new house." Nothing could have suited the boy better.