d week . . . . . 2s. | Sixth week . . . . . 16s.

Nothing could be more just; and yet--will it be believed? when Bunting
came back he offered me THREE-HALFPENCE! the mean, dishonest scoundrel.

However, I was even with him, I can tell you.--He spent all his money in
a fortnight, and THEN I screwed him down! I made him, besides giving
me a penny for a penny, pay me a quarter of his bread and butter
at breakfast and a quarter of his cheese at supper; and before the
half-year was out, I got from him a silver fruit-knife, a box of
compasses, and a very pretty silver-laced waistcoat, in which I went
home as proud as a king: and, what's more, I had no less than three
golden guineas in the pocket of it, besides fifteen shillings, the
knife, and a brass bottle-screw, which I got from another chap. It
wasn't bad interest for twelve shillings--which was all the money I'd
had in the year--was it? Heigho! I've often wished that I could get such
a chance again in this wicked world; but men are more avaricious now
than they used to be in those dear early days.

Well, I went home in my new waistcoat as fine as a peacock; and when I
gave the bottle-screw to my father, begging him to take it as a token of
my affection for him, my dear mother burst into such a fit of tears as I
never saw, and kissed and hugged me fit to smother me. "Bless him, bless
him," says she, "to think of his old father. And where did you purchase
it, Bob?"--"Why, mother," says I, "I purchased it out of my savings"
(which was as true as the gospel).--When I said this, mother looked
round to father, smiling, although she had tears in her eyes, and she
took his hand, and with her other hand drew me to her. "Is he not a
noble boy?" says she to my father: "and only nine years old!"--"Faith,"
says my father, "he IS a good lad, Susan. Thank thee, my boy: and here
is a crown-piece in return for thy bottle-screw--it shall open us a
bottle of the very best too," says my father. And he kept his word.
I always was fond of good wine (though never, from a motive of proper
self-denial, having any in my cellar); and, by Jupiter! on this night I
had my little skinful,--for there was no stinting,--so pleased were my
dear parents with the bottle-screw. The best of it was, it only cost me
threepence originally, which a chap could not pay me.

Seeing this game was such a good one, I became very generous towards my
parents; and a capital way it is to encourage liberality