four times before they were suffered to set off, they directed their
steps the way they thought would directly conduct them to the goal; and
some of them had almost reached it, when Sharply (the boy I mentioned)
who had placed a shilling upon the stick, for they drew lots who should
do that, and he who furnished the money was to stand by it, to observe
who won it by coming nearest; well, Sharply, I say, just as they came
close to it, moved away softly to another place, above three yards
distant from any of them (for I should have told you, that if none of
them got within three yards, the shilling was to remain his, and they
were each to give him a penny.) So then he untied their eyes, and
insisted upon it they had all of them lost. But two or three of us
happened to be by, and so we said he had cheated them, and ought not
to keep the money, as it had fairly been won by Smyth. But he would not
give it up, so it made a quarrel between him and Smyth, and at last they
fought, and Mr. Chiron confined them both in the school all the rest of
the afternoon, and when he heard what the quarrel was about, he took
the shilling from Sharply, and called him a mean-spirited cheat; but he
would not let Smyth have it, because he said he deserved to lose it for
fighting about such a trifle, and so it was put into the forfeit-money.'

'But pray do not you think Sharply behaved extremely wrong?' 'Shamefully
so, indeed,' said the gentleman. 'I never could have any opinion of a
boy 'who could act so dishonourably,' said the lady, 'let his cleverness
be what it would.' 'Pray, Frank, tell me some more,' said the little
boy. 'More!' replied Frank, 'I could tell you an hundred such kind of
things. One time, as Peter Light was walking up the yard, with some
damsons in his hat, Sharply ran by, and as he passed, knocked his hat
out of his hand, for the sake of scrambling for as many as he could get
himself. And sometimes, after the pie-woman has been there, he gets such
heaps of tarts you cannot think, by his different tricks: perhaps he
will buy a currant tart himself; then he would go about, calling out,
"Who'll change a cheesecake for a currant tart?" and now-and-then he
will add, "and half a bun into the bargain!" Then two or three of the
boys call out, "I will, I will!" and when they go to hold out their
cheesecakes to him, he snatches them out of their hands before they are
aware, and runs away in an instant; and whilst they stand for a momen