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“Is his name Lollo?” asked Jackanapes, his hand lingering in the wiry mane.

“Yes.”

“What does Lollo mean?”

“Red.”

“Is Lollo your pony?”

“No. My father’s.” And the Gipsy boy led Lollo away.

At the first opportunity Jackanapes stole away again to the common. This time he saw the Gipsy-father, smoking a dirty pipe.

“Lollo is your pony, isn’t he?” said Jackanapes.

“Yes.”

“He’s a very nice one.”

“He’s a racer.”

“You don’t want to sell him, do you?”

“Fifteen pounds,” said the Gipsy-father; and Jackanapes sighed and went home again. That very afternoon he and Tony rode the two donkeys, and Tony managed to get thrown, and even Jackanapes’ donkey kicked. But it was jolting, clumsy work after the elastic swiftness and the dainty mischief of the red-haired pony.

A few days later Miss Jessamine spoke very seriously to Jackanapes. She was a good deal agitated as she told him that his grandfather, the General, was coming to the Green, and that he must be on his very best behavior during the visit. If it had been feasible to leave off calling him Jackanapes and to get used to his baptismal name of Theodore before the day after to-morrow (when the General was due), it would have been satisfactory. But Miss Jessamine feared it would be impossible in practice, and she had scruples about it on principle. It would not seem quite truthful, although she had always most fully intended that he should be called Theodore when he had outgrown the ridiculous appropriateness of his nickname. The fact was that he had not outgrown it, but he must take care to remember who was meant when his grandfather said Theodore.

Indeed for that matter he must take care all along.

“You are apt to be giddy, Jackanapes,” said Miss Jessamine.

“Yes aunt,” said Jackanapes, thinking of the hobby-horses.

“You are a good boy, Jackanapes. Thank GOD, I can tell your grandfather that. An obedient boy, an honorable boy, and a kind-hearted boy. But you are–in short, you are a Boy, Jackanapes. And I hope,”–added Miss Jessamine, desperate with the results of experience–“that the General knows that Boys will be Boys.”

What mischief could be foreseen, Jackanapes promised to guard against. He was to keep his clothes and his hands clean, to look over his catechism, not to put sticky things in his pockets, to keep that hair of his smooth–(“It’s the wind that blows it, Aunty,” said Jackanapes–“I’ll send by the coach for some bear’s-grease,” said Miss Jessamine, tying a knot in her pocket-handkerchief)–not to burst in at the parlor door, not to talk at the top of his voice, not to crumple his Sunday frill, and to sit quite quiet during the sermon, to be sure to say “sir” to the General, to be careful about rubbing his shoes on the doormat, and to bring his lesson-books to his aunt at once that she might iron down the dogs’ ears. The General arrived, and for the first day all went well, except that Jackanapes’ hair was as wild as usual, for the hair-dresser had no bear’s-grease left. He began to feel more at ease with his grandfather, and disposed to talk confidentially with him, as he did with the Postman. All that the General felt it would take too long to tell, but the result was the same. He was disposed to talk confidentially with Jackanapes.

“Mons’ous pretty place this,” he said, looking out of the lattice on to the Green, where the grass was vivid with sunset, and the shadows were long and peaceful.

“You should see it in Fair-week, sir,” said Jackanapes, shaking his yellow mop, and leaning back in his one of the two Chippendale armchairs in which they sat.

“A fine time that, eh?” said the General, with a twinkle in his left eye. (The other was glass.)

Jackanapes shook his hair once more. “I enjoyed this last one the best of all,” he said. “I’d so much money.”

“By George, it’s not a common complaint in these bad times. How much had ye?”