were gone to bed, answered the end better, and was not half the
trouble.

Among the many trades which Giles professed, he sometimes practiced
that of a rat-catcher; but he was addicted to so many tricks, that
he never followed the same trade long; for detection will, sooner or
later, follow the best concerted villany. Whenever he was sent for
to a farm house, his custom was to kill a few of the old rats,
always taking care to leave a little stock of young ones alive,
sufficient to keep up the breed; "for," said he, "if I were to be
such a fool as to clear a house or a barn at once, how would my
trade be carried on?" And where any barn was overstocked, he used to
borrow a few rats from thence, just to people a neighboring granary
which had none; and he might have gone on till now, had he not
unluckily been caught one evening emptying his cage of rats under
parson Wilson's barn door.

This worthy minister, Mr. Wilson, used to pity the neglected
children of Giles, as much as he blamed the wicked parents. He one
day picked up Dick, who was far the best of Giles's bad boys. Dick
was loitering about in a field behind the parson's garden in search
of a hen's nest, his mother having ordered him to bring home a few
eggs that night, by hook or by crook, as Giles was resolved to have
some pan-cakes for supper, though he knew that eggs were a penny
a-piece. Mr. Wilson had long been desirous of snatching some of this
vagrant family from ruin; and his chief hopes were bent on Dick, as
the least hackneyed in knavery. He had once given him a new pair of
shoes, on his promising to go to school next Sunday; but no sooner
had Rachel, the boy's mother, got the shoes into her clutches, than
she pawned them for a bottle of gin; and ordered the boy to keep out
of the parson's sight, and to be sure to play his marbles on Sunday
for the future, at the other end of the parish, and not near the
churchyard. Mr. Wilson, however, picked up the boy once more, for it
was not his way to despair of any body. Dick was just going to take
to his heels, as usual, for fear the old story of the shoes should
be brought forward; but finding he could not get off, what does he
do but run into a little puddle of muddy water which lay between him
and the parson, that the sight of his naked feet might not bring on
the dreaded subject. Now it happened that Mr. Wilson was planting a
little field of beans, so he thought this a good opportunity to
employ Dick, and