Fatal Boots | Page 5

expects to make A GREAT DEAL by his farm.
"We have got the most charming country-house YOU CAN IMAGINE: it is QUITE SHUT IN by trees, and so retired that, though only thirty miles from London, the post comes to us but once a week. The roads, it must be confessed, are execrable; it is winter now, and we are up to our knees in mud and snow. But oh, Eliza! how happy we are: with Thomas (he has had a sad attack of rheumatism, dear man!) and little Bobby, and our kind friend Dr. Bates, who comes so far to see us, I leave you to fancy that we have a charming merry party, and do not care for all the gayeties of Ranelagh.
"Adieu! dear baby is crying for his mamma. A thousand kisses from your affectionate
"SUSAN STUBBS."
There it is! Doctor's bills, gentleman-farming, twenty-one pints of porter a week. In this way my unnatural parents were already robbing me of my property.
FEBRUARY.--CUTTING WEATHER.
I have called this chapter "cutting weather," partly in compliment to the month of February, and partly in respect of my own misfortunes, which you are going to read about. For I have often thought that January (which is mostly twelfth-cake and holiday time) is like the first four or five years of a little boy's life; then comes dismal February, and the working-days with it, when chaps begin to look out for themselves, after the Christmas and the New Year's heyday and merrymaking are over, which our infancy may well be said to be. Well can I recollect that bitter first of February, when I first launched out into the world and appeared at Doctor Swishtail's academy.
I began at school that life of prudence and economy which I have carried on ever since. My mother gave me eighteenpence on setting out (poor soul! I thought her heart would break as she kissed me, and bade God bless me); and, besides, I had a small capital of my own which I had amassed for a year previous. I'll tell you, what I used to do. Wherever I saw six halfpence I took one. If it was asked for I said I had taken it and gave it back;--if it was not missed, I said nothing about it, as why should I?--those who don't miss their money, don't lose their money. So I had a little private fortune of three shillings, besides mother's eighteenpence. At school they called me the copper-merchant, I had such lots of it.
Now, even at a preparatory school, a well-regulated boy may better himself: and I can tell you I did. I never was in any quarrels: I never was very high in the class or very low: but there was no chap so much respected:--and why? I'D ALWAYS MONEY. The other boys spent all theirs in the first day or two, and they gave me plenty of cakes and barley-sugar then, I can tell you. I'd no need to spend my own money, for they would insist upon treating me. Well, in a week, when theirs was gone, and they had but their threepence a week to look to for the rest of the half-year, what did I do? Why, I am proud to say that three-halfpence out of the threepence a week of almost all the young gentlemen at Dr. Swishtail's, came into my pocket. Suppose, for instance, Tom Hicks wanted a slice of gingerbread, who had the money? Little Bob Stubbs, to be sure. "Hicks," I used to say, "I'LL buy you three halfp'orth of gingerbread, if you'll give me threepence next Saturday." And he agreed; and next Saturday came, and he very often could not pay me more than three-halfpence. Then there was the threepence I was to have THE NEXT Saturday. I'll tell you what I did for a whole half- year:--I lent a chap, by the name of Dick Bunting, three-halfpence the first Saturday for three-pence the next: he could not pay me more than half when Saturday came, and I'm blest if I did not make him pay me three-halfpence FOR THREE-AND-TWENTY WEEKS RUNNING, making two shillings and tenpence-halfpenny. But he was a sad dishonorable fellow, Dick Bunting; for after I'd been so kind to him, and let him off for three-and-twenty-weeks the money he owed me, holidays came, and threepence he owed me still. Well, according to the common principles of practice, after six-weeks' holidays, he ought to have paid me exactly sixteen shillings, which was my due. For the
First week the 3d. would be 6d. | Fourth week . . . . . 4s. Second week . . . . . 1s. | Fifth week . . . . . 8s. Third week . . . . . 2s. | Sixth week . . . .