in children.
I gave mamma a very neat brass thimble, and she gave me a half-guinea
piece. Then I gave her a very pretty needle-book, which I made myself
with an ace of spades from a new pack of cards we had, and I got Sally,
our maid, to cover it with a bit of pink satin her mistress had given
her; and I made the leaves of the book, which I vandyked very nicely,
out of a piece of flannel I had had round my neck for a sore throat.
It smelt a little of hartshorn, but it was a beautiful needle-book; and
mamma was so delighted with it, that she went into town and bought me a
gold-laced hat. Then I bought papa a pretty china tobacco-stopper: but
I am sorry to say of my dear father that he was not so generous as my
mamma or myself, for he only burst out laughing, and did not give me so
much as a half-crown piece, which was the least I expected from him. "I
shan't give you anything, Bob, this time," says he; "and I wish, my boy,
you would not make any more such presents,--for, really, they are too
expensive." Expensive indeed! I hate meanness,--even in a father.

I must tell you about the silver-edged waistcoat which Bunting gave
me. Mamma asked me about it, and I told her the truth,--that it was a
present from one of the boys for my kindness to him. Well, what does she
do but writes back to Dr. Swishtail, when I went to school, thanking him
for his attention to her dear son, and sending a shilling to the good
and grateful little boy who had given me the waistcoat!

"What waistcoat is it," says the Doctor to me, "and who gave it to you?"

"Bunting gave it me, sir," says I.

"Call Bunting!" and up the little ungrateful chap came. Would you
believe it, he burst into tears,--told that the waistcoat had been given
him by his mother, and that he had been forced to give it for a debt to
Copper-Merchant, as the nasty little blackguard called me? He then
said how, for three-halfpence, he had been compelled to pay me
three shillings (the sneak! as if he had been OBLIGED to borrow the
three-halfpence!)--how all the other boys had been swindled (swindled!)
by me in like manner,--and how, with only twelve shillings, I had
managed to scrape together four guineas. . . . .

My courage almost fails me as I describe the shameful scene that
followed. The boys were called in, my own little account-book was
dragged out of my cupboard, to prove how much I had received from each,
and every farthing of my money was paid back to them. The tyrant