duck. I should like to take you with me
and cuddle you all the way, only I must not"; and away she went.

So Tom really tried to be a good boy, and tormented no sea-beasts after
that as long as he lived; and he is quite alive, I assure you, still.

Oh, how good little boys ought to be who have kind pussy mammas to
cuddle them and tell them stories; and how afraid they ought to be of
growing naughty, and bringing tears into their mammas' pretty eyes!

"Thou little child, yet glorious in the night
Of heaven-born freedom on thy Being's height,
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke
The Years to bring the inevitable yoke--
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?
Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight,
And custom lie upon thee with a weight
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life."

WORDSWORTH.

CHAPTER VI

HERE I come to the very saddest part of all my story. I know some people
will only laugh at it, and call it much ado about nothing. But I know
one man who would not; and he was an officer with a pair of grey
moustaches as long as your arm, who said once in company that two of the
most heart-rending sights in the world, which moved him most to tears,
which he would do anything to prevent or remedy, were a child over a
broken toy and a child stealing sweets.

The company did not laugh at him; his moustaches were too long and too
grey for that: but, after he was gone, they called him sentimental and
so forth, all but one dear little old Quaker lady with a soul as white
as her cap, who was not, of course, generally partial to soldiers; and
she said very quietly, like a Quaker:

"Friends, it is borne upon my mind that that is a truly brave man."

[Illustration: "He crept away among the rocks, and got to the cabinet,
and behold! it was open."--_P. 172_.]

Now you may fancy that Tom was quite good, when he had everything that
he could want or wish: but you would be very much mistaken. Being quite
comfortable is a very good thing; but it does not make people good.
Indeed, it sometimes makes them naughty, as it has made the people in
America; and as it made the people in the Bible, who waxed fat and
kicked, like horses overfed and underworked. And I am very sorry to say
that this happened to little Tom. For he grew so fond of the
sea-bullseyes and sea-lollipops