to make money in your kind of business or mine either. He makes a terrible hullabaloo every time a little ragamuffin gets hurt with blank cartridges or toy pistols. He wants the manufactories shut down at once. He’d rather take the risk of having six youngsters starved to death, than to have one die of lockjaw.”

“I should say he ought to have the lockjaw himself and any other man who uses his jaw for the repression of legitimate trade. Faugh! we’ve no use for such effeminates on this end of the planet where more big manufactories are needed to keep it well balanced. I should like to see his jaw locked up.”

“O no! not quite so bad as that, Fons.”

“Yes, worse than that,” continued Fons angrily. “Shut up our own manufactories and send abroad for Fourth of July fireworks! That’s the kind of business fiend or fool he is—send to the English for things to celebrate our victory over them. Bah!”

“But we never have, Fons—that is to any ridiculous extent—any alarming extent, so to speak?”

“But we will if the idiots that would shut down our Pyrotechnic manufactories are not shut up. The London Pyro-king is trying to king it here now by catering to the Independence Day sentiment. He hates it, but he is going to coin money out of it all the same—the viper!”

“Head him off, then! Rule him out! We ought to manufacture our own implements—especially the patriotic ones and handle them too and teach our boys how to handle them. If we would teach them how to be brave and do brave things—really dare to do them, it would be better all around—the planet included, most assuredly it would.”

Fons made no reply to Schwarmer’s rather ragged reasoning, but when he got to the top of the hill he broke out:

“Excuse me. I’m going back to see if I can’t put a little of the dare devil stuff into that all too goodish boy. I must have a little fun out of him anyway.”

“Don’t be gone long, Fons. You must be here when your patriotic stuffs are unloaded. I don’t care to be near enough to smell powder if they should be handled too roughly or by the wrong end.”

“It’s the little idiot that sits down on my trade that will be likely to smell of the powdered beauties,” laughed Fons sardonically.

“Have a care, youngster. You can’t cut up here as you can in the city without having it known.”

“O! it’s only a little scare I’ll treat him to. Boys like to be scared, you know. That’s the secret of success in the money end of the Pyrotechnic business.”

Before he got back to the Cornwallis lot, he saw the baggage-man coming up the hill.

“Heigho,” he exclaimed, slapping his leg—“just in the nick of time! Providence permits! Now I will have some fun. Stop a bit, Dan. I want an assortment of that patriotic fervor. I am going to have a little picnic with some boys right here if nothing happens.”

After he had selected the things he wanted, he slipped a dollar into Dan’s hand, saying, “you may go on now, but you’d better stay up with us today, you and your nag, and help us celebrate. The women folks didn’t come and you haven’t any of those ‘pull backs,’ Schwarmer tells me, so we can have a very free time.”

Dan laughed and moved on. Fons carried his boxes to a shady nook on the steep bank just opposite the lot where Laurens Cornwallis was still flying his kite. After he had arranged them he stopped and looked at them with a satisfied air. Then he selected a thing with spiral stripes of red, white and blue.

“This will take the boy’s eye at once,” he said to himself as he climbed the hill to go to the Cornwallis lot. “I must have invented it for his kind of eye—a sort of Aaron’s rod—yes, that’s what I’ll name it—a bible name. That will be ahead of King Pang’s ‘Sacred Mandarin.’ It’s just the ticker for a little Sunday school chub like Laurens.”

When he got to the fence he saw that Laurens was having trouble with his kite.

“Providence permits again,” he muttered as he jumped over into the lot.

“Hello there! my dear fellow,” he called out. “I see Mistress Kite has gone back on you. They are always doing that sort of trick. I had about a hundred when I was your age. I know all about the pesky things. I can doctor it for you.” He left Aaron’s rod by the first tree he came to and went on.

Laurens shied off a little when he saw he was the lad that was with Schwarmer, but Fons paid no attention to the “instinctive dodge,” as he had heard his military professor call it. He marched boldly up, took hold of the kite and began to fix it as though it belonged to him by right of superior knowledge concerning kites. Laurens watched him with that kind of fascination which a young boy invariably feels for an older one, and especially one who has had an experience with so many kites and had so many implements in his pockets to fix and do things with it; for therefrom, during the process he took all sorts of beautifully made instruments, ranging from a gold toothpick to a silver match-box and gave them to him to hold while he was diving into the depths for his sharpest jack-knife. Besides, he had a diamond ring on his finger of dazzling brightness and a little jewelled watch in his vest pocket, which he pulled out to see what time of day it was. After he had fixed the kite and sailed it across the field several times, he stopped short and exclaimed:

“There, it sails beautifully; but I’ve had enough of it! Say, little ‘Can’t tell a lie.’ I should think you’d be awful tired of the kite business. I quit it long before I was as old as you are. Why don’t you play with something more patriotic—something like what George Washington used to lick the English with? I don’t blame you though for not wanting Schwarmer’s cheep truck; I’ve got some things that I brought from the city—things that I helped make for our school celebration. They are daisies! stars and stripes of just the right color! Come on and I’ll show you one. I’m going to have a picnic down by the river this afternoon.”

“I’m afraid mamma wouldn’t like to have me go out of the field.”

“O you needn’t be afraid. It’s liberty day. She won’t care, take my word for it. I’m older than you. Come on, you’ll never have another chance to see my prettiest piece. I haven’t but one left and when it’s once let off there’s an end of it; there it is leaning against the tree. Aaron’s rod, I call it. Your Sunday school teacher has told you about Aaron’s wonderful rod. Come and see how you like its namesake.”

Fons started off with the kite in hand and Laurens still had the beautiful implements.

“Come on,” shouted Fons, seizing Aaron’s rod and swinging it gayly. “Catch me if you can.”

It was a lively chase. Over the fence, across the road and down the steep bank! When they stopped they were side by side and both were laughing. They had enjoyed the race.

“Now,” said Fons, “we are here and if you don’t want to see my patriotic piece you will have to shut your eyes.”

Laurens opened his eyes still wider instead of shutting them, for Fons began to show off at once. It was a very pretty show. The place was in deep shadow and the effect was almost as vivid as it would have been at night.

“That’s the style of them,” laughed Fons after he had finished the piece. “I see you like it. Now you stay here while I run up to the house and get some lemons and candy; and don’t let any bad boys run off with my things.”

What Fons really