Melchiors Dream and Other Tales | Page 4

him, and
said, gently--
"Richard is only joking; he doesn't really want to get rid of us. The
other day the curate said he wished he had a sister, and Richard offered
to sell us all for ninepence; but he is only in fun. Only it is rather slow
just now, and the boys get rather cross; at least, we all of us do."
"It's a dreadful state of things," said the friend, smiling through his
black beard and moustachios. "What is to be done?"
"I know what would be very nice," insinuated the young lady.
"What?"
"If you wouldn't mind telling us a very short story till supper-time. The
boys like stories."

"That's a good idea," said Benjamin. "As if the girls didn't!"
But the friend proclaimed order, and seated himself with the girl in
question on his knee. "Well, what sort of a story is it to be?"
"Any sort," said Richard; "only not too true, if you please. I don't like
stories like tracts. There was an usher at a school I was at, and he used
to read tracts about good boys and bad boys to the fellows on Sunday
afternoon. He always took out the real names, and put in the names of
the fellows instead. Those who had done well in the week he put in as
good ones, and those who hadn't as the bad. He didn't like me, and I
was always put in as a bad boy, and I came to so many untimely ends I
got sick of it. I was hanged twice, and transported once for
sheep-stealing; I committed suicide one week, and broke into the bank
the next; I ruined three families, became a hopeless drunkard, and
broke the hearts of my twelve distinct parents. I used to beg him to let
me be reformed next week; but he said he never would till I did my
Cæsar better. So, if you please, we'll have a story that can't be true."
"Very well," said the friend, laughing; "but if it isn't true, may I put you
in? All the best writers, you know, draw their characters from their
friends now-a-days. May I put you in?"
"Oh, certainly!" said Richard, placing himself in front of the fire,
putting his feet on the hob, and stroking his curls with an air which
seemed to imply that whatever he was put into would be highly
favoured.
The rest struggled, and pushed, and squeezed themselves into more
modest but equally comfortable quarters; and after a few moments of
thought, Paterfamilias's friend commenced the story of
MELCHIOR'S DREAM.
"Melchior is my hero. He was--well, he considered himself a young
man, so we will consider him so too. He was not perfect; but in these
days the taste in heroes is for a good deal of imperfection, not to say
wickedness. He was not an only son. On the contrary, he had a great

many brothers and sisters, and found them quite as objectionable as my
friend Richard does."
"I smell a moral," murmured the said Richard.
"Your scent must be keen," said the story-teller, "for it is a long way off.
Well, he had never felt them so objectionable as on one particular night,
when, the house being full of company, it was decided that the boys
should sleep in 'barracks,' as they called it; that is, all in one large
room."
"Thank goodness, we have not come to that!" said the incorrigible
Richard; but he was reduced to order by threats of being turned out, and
contented himself with burning the soles of his boots against the bars of
the grate in silence: and the friend continued:--
"But this was not the worst. Not only was he, Melchior, to sleep in the
same room with his brothers, but his bed being the longest and largest,
his youngest brother was to sleep at the other end of it--foot to foot.
True, by this means he got another pillow, for, of course, that little
Hop-o'-my-Thumb could do without one, and so he took his; but, in
spite of this, he determined that, sooner than submit to such an
indignity, he would sit up all night. Accordingly, when all the rest were
fast asleep, Melchior, with his boots off and his waistcoat easily
unbuttoned, sat over the fire in the long lumber-room which served that
night as 'barracks'. He had refused to eat any supper downstairs to mark
his displeasure, and now repaid himself by a stolen meal according to
his own taste. He had got a pork-pie, a little bread and cheese, some
large onions to roast, a couple of raw apples, an orange, and papers of
soda and tartaric acid to compound effervescing draughts. When these
dainties were finished, he proceeded to warm some beer