Fatal Boots | Page 6

. 16s.
Nothing could be more just; and yet--will it be believed? when Bunting came back he offered me THREE-HALFPENCE! the mean, dishonest scoundrel.
However, I was even with him, I can tell you.--He spent all his money in a fortnight, and THEN I screwed him down! I made him, besides giving me a penny for a penny, pay me a quarter of his bread and butter at breakfast and a quarter of his cheese at supper; and before the half-year was out, I got from him a silver fruit-knife, a box of compasses, and a very pretty silver-laced waistcoat, in which I went home as proud as a king: and, what's more, I had no less than three golden guineas in the pocket of it, besides fifteen shillings, the knife, and a brass bottle-screw, which I got from another chap. It wasn't bad interest for twelve shillings--which was all the money I'd had in the year--was it? Heigho! I've often wished that I could get such a chance again in this wicked world; but men are more avaricious now than they used to be in those dear early days.
Well, I went home in my new waistcoat as fine as a peacock; and when I gave the bottle-screw to my father, begging him to take it as a token of my affection for him, my dear mother burst into such a fit of tears as I never saw, and kissed and hugged me fit to smother me. "Bless him, bless him," says she, "to think of his old father. And where did you purchase it, Bob?"--"Why, mother," says I, "I purchased it out of my savings" (which was as true as the gospel).--When I said this, mother looked round to father, smiling, although she had tears in her eyes, and she took his hand, and with her other hand drew me to her. "Is he not a noble boy?" says she to my father: "and only nine years old!"--"Faith," says my father, "he IS a good lad, Susan. Thank thee, my boy: and here is a crown- piece in return for thy bottle-screw--it shall open us a bottle of the very best too," says my father. And he kept his word. I always was fond of good wine (though never, from a motive of proper self-denial, having any in my cellar); and, by Jupiter! on this night I had my little skinful,--for there was no stinting,--so pleased were my dear parents with the bottle-screw. The best of it was, it only cost me threepence originally, which a chap could not pay me.
Seeing this game was such a good one, I became very generous towards my parents; and a capital way it is to encourage liberality in children. I gave mamma a very neat brass thimble, and she gave me a half-guinea piece. Then I gave her a very pretty needle-book, which I made myself with an ace of spades from a new pack of cards we had, and I got Sally, our maid, to cover it with a bit of pink satin her mistress had given her; and I made the leaves of the book, which I vandyked very nicely, out of a piece of flannel I had had round my neck for a sore throat. It smelt a little of hartshorn, but it was a beautiful needle-book; and mamma was so delighted with it, that she went into town and bought me a gold- laced hat. Then I bought papa a pretty china tobacco-stopper: but I am sorry to say of my dear father that he was not so generous as my mamma or myself, for he only burst out laughing, and did not give me so much as a half-crown piece, which was the least I expected from him. "I shan't give you anything, Bob, this time," says he; "and I wish, my boy, you would not make any more such presents,--for, really, they are too expensive." Expensive indeed! I hate meanness,--even in a father.
I must tell you about the silver-edged waistcoat which Bunting gave me. Mamma asked me about it, and I told her the truth,--that it was a present from one of the boys for my kindness to him. Well, what does she do but writes back to Dr. Swishtail, when I went to school, thanking him for his attention to her dear son, and sending a shilling to the good and grateful little boy who had given me the waistcoat!
"What waistcoat is it," says the Doctor to me, "and who gave it to you?"
"Bunting gave it me, sir," says I.
"Call Bunting!" and up the little ungrateful chap came. Would you believe it, he burst into tears,--told that the waistcoat had been given him by his mother, and that he had been forced to give it for a