THE ADVICE
'Now,' said the Ameliorator, when they were all comfortably inside the inner room, 'I want to tell you about some of my friends. "Ladies first" is a good rule: let me tell you about a little girl I once knew,'—here he laid his hand on Beryl's head—'who had just such soft hair as this, and just such a gloomy little face.' Here Beryl smiled, in spite of herself. 'Yes,' added the Ameliorator, 'and just such a smile now and then. And what do you think the trouble was? Why, although she had no fewer than fifteen dolls, all given to her by thoughtful friends, she wanted a new one. These fifteen dolls were very good ones, especially the faithful old Arthur John, a wooden gentleman of strong affections and no nose worth mentioning, yet nothing would do but she must have an aristocratic pink wax lady in white muslin, that hung in a certain shop window and stared hard all day at the little ragamuffins who pressed their faces against the pane and said, "O my, ain't she a beauty!" Why the little girl wanted her I could never understand, because she had no expression at all, and my young friend had a brother who had declared that if any more "sappy wax dummies" were brought into the house, he would put them to bed in the oven. Still, in spite of this terrible threat, she did want her, and in her despair she came to me about it.
'Well,' added the Ameliorator, 'what do you think I did? I made her sit down by this very table, and I opened this very drawer, and I took out these very pictures, and as I showed them to her' (here he began to lay before the bewildered Beryl picture after picture of ragged street children) 'I told her how these little wretches were forced to run about all day in the gutters, whether it was wet or fine, cold or warm, because they had no nurseries, and how they could get very little to eat, and how the only toys they had were bits of wood and old bottles. And then and there I made so bold as to suggest to my discontented friend—who of course had every reason to be unhappy, when her mother, who already had given her so many nice things, refused to buy her an expensive doll—that if she were not only to stop wishing for any more new toys, but were to send a few of those she already had to be given away to some of these children who had none, why I fancied she would not be altogether miserable any longer. That is what I told her to do, and that is what she did, and I believe I may truthfully say it was a wonderful cure.
'Then—let me see—yes,' the Ameliorator continued more briskly, 'then there was a boy, or—shall I say, a little man?—who once consulted me. The difficulty, if I remember rightly, was intellectual. O yes!—he was convinced that he, being a wise patriarch of eight or nine, knew more than the lady engaged by his parents to teach him. So he applied to her a not very respectful nickname and refused to learn the lessons that she set him, and swaggered about calling her a beast, which is not the right attitude of a gentleman (although old enough to know everything) towards a lady, and made himself as unpleasant as he could.
'By some chance, one of my cards fell into his hands: he read it and was fascinated by the words, "Bad governesses punished." He came to me to arrange for the punishment. The best way, I told him, is shocks. There is nothing like a shock to bring a governess to her senses. "Now, what is the last thing in the world your governess expects from you?" I asked. "Why, that you will learn a lesson of your own accord, without constant jogs from her." So that if he were to do this, I told him, he would give her a severe shock, and thus punish her.
'He went away delighted with the plan. Morning after morning he appeared in the schoolroom with his task all prepared, and every morning the governess received a new shock. And when I peeped through the window not long after, there they sat, close together, she happy after her punishment, and he happy because (only he didn't know this) he had made her so. For she was unhappy before—very; but young fellows with exalted ideas on their own judgment and knowledge have no time to observe the unhappiness of their governesses or parents, have they, Bertram?'
Bertram did not answer: this shock system of punishment was new to him. He felt muddled, but he began to think he would try it. He was not, however, quite in a condition to see the Ameliorator clearly.
'And little Bobus doesn't like going to bed?' the Ameliorator asked, turning to Bobus. 'My dear sir, it can be made the best thing in the world. Let me tell you how to make it so. Directly you get into bed, begin to think what pleasant little surprise you can give some one on the next day: any one, mother or father, cousin or playmate, nurse or beggar in the street. You will find this such an exciting game that you will run to bed eagerly when the time comes, and, what is more, it makes you readier to get up. At any rate, Bobus, try it.
'And little Aline,' the Ameliorator went on, taking Aline's hand and beaming down upon her with his kindly eyes, which danced more than ever behind his round spectacles, 'little Aline prefers cake to bread and butter! Dear, dear, this is very sad. If she eats three pieces of bread and butter she may have cake, but not till then. Well, I think I should advise her to eat those three pieces. Little girls who eat only cake grow up to be weedy and weak, and unable to do half the good things of life: they can't skate, and they can't dance, and they can't play games. So I should advise Aline to eat the bread and butter.'