ou what
happened to me when I was in the city, Neddy."

"Do tell me now," cried the boy, seating himself by his father, "while
we rest a little quietly here."

"I was walking along a narrow gloomy lane on my way to the
shipping-office, when suddenly I felt a hand at my pocket. Mine was
instantly down upon it, and I captured a little thief who appeared to be
about your own age."

"The little rogue!" exclaimed Neddy, indignantly. "And what did you do
with him, papa? Did you give him over to the police, or thrash him
soundly with your stick?"

"I grieved to see one so young already plunging into crime."

"Yes, that is the worst of it," said Neddy. "If he is so bad as a boy,
what will he be when he is a man! He will be sure to end on the gallows!
I hope you punished him well, papa."

I pricked up my ears on hearing this conversation; I could not help
connecting it with what Bob had told his lame little brother;
I therefore listened with peculiar interest. Not that, as a rat, I could
understand the word _crime_, or know why human beings feel it wrong to
seize anything that they want and can get. It was evident to me that
they are governed by laws and principles quite incomprehensible to my
race. For as man has no scruple in taking from rats their lives and
their skins, so rats, on the other hand, have no manner of scruple in
taking all they require from man.

But to return to the gentleman and his son.

"No, Neddy, I did not punish the child," replied the former gravely.
"I looked at his meagre form clothed in rags, his wasted countenance
prematurely old in its expression of sorrow and care, his hollow eyes,
his sunken cheeks,-- and I thought of you, my son!" the gentleman added,
with a sigh.

"Well," said Neddy, "I hope there's a precious deal of difference
between me and a beggarly thief!"

"What has made that difference?" said the gentleman, laying his hand on
the shoulder of his beautiful boy. "I questioned that unhappy child.
I found him ignorant of the first principles of virtue. His mother is
dead, his father in jail; if he has learnt anything from those around
him it is only a knowledge of vice. Pinched by hunger, homeless,
friendless, ignorant even that he has a soul, it would be a miracle
indeed if he followed the straight path of which he has not so much as
heard! What can we expect him to be but a thief,-- what would you have
been in his place?"

Neddy looked thoughtful and was silent. Then raising