!--the very scenes that in the morning he looked at only with
bitter anguish and remorse, this noon he was laughing at as good
jokes--so much for the influence of good society! An instinctive
feeling, soon after Dick Jones came in, led Fred to push his little
bundle into the farthest corner, under the bed, far out of sight or
inquiry; and the same reason led him to suppress all mention of his
mother, and all the sacred part of his former life. He did this more
studiously, because, having once accidentally remarked how his mother
used to forbid him certain things, the well-educated Dick broke out,--

"Well, for my part, I could whip my mother when I wa'n't higher than
_that_!" with a significant gesture.

"Whip your mother!" exclaimed Fred, with a face full of horror.

"To be sure, greenie! Why not? Precious fun it was in those times. I
used to slip in and steal the old woman's whiskey and sugar when she was
just too far over to walk a crack--she'd throw the tongs at me, and I'd
throw the shovel at her, and so it went square and square."

Goethe says somewhere, "Miserable is that man whose _mother_ has not
made all other mothers venerable." Our new acquaintance bade fair to
come under this category.

Fred's education, under this talented instructor, made progress. He sat
hours and hours laughing at his stories--sometimes obscene, sometimes
profane, but always so full of life, drollery, and mimicry that a more
steady head than Fred's was needed to withstand the contagion. Dick had
been to the theatre--knew it all like a book, and would take Fred there
as soon as they got out; then he had a first-rate pack of cards, and he
could teach Fred to play; and the gay tempters were soon spread out on
their bed, and Fred and his instructor sat hour after hour absorbed in
what to him was a new world of interest. He soon learned, could play for
small stakes, and felt in himself the first glimmering of that fire
which, when fully kindled, many waters cannot quench, nor floods drown!

Dick was, as we said, precocious. He had the cool eye and steady hand of
an experienced gamester, and in a few days he won, of course, all Fred's
little earnings. But then he was quite liberal and free with his money.
He added to their prison fare such various improvements as his abundance
of money enabled him to buy. He had brought with him the foundation of
good cheer in a capacious bottle which emerged the first night from his
pocket, for he said