“Why, what did you do? What on earth’s the matter? Tell us all about it,” cried a chorus of voices; “we could see something was up, but we didn’t know what.”
“Well, boys,” Charles began, “I have often caught that rascal feeding little boys, and big ones, too, from parcels of raisins, sugar, and other things; and I thought I would make him smart for it some day. So to-day, when I saw him at it again, I thought of writing something on a scrap of paper, and getting a chance to slip it into his bag. You saw me do that, perhaps. What I wrote was, ‘O, mother! please to forgive me! I stole your raisins and things, but I won’t do it no more.’ When his mother empties out the raisins, she will find that, and it will be enough for her. Then she’ll put two and two together, and then, most likely, she’ll put Tim and his skate-straps together. That is all, boys.”
“Good for you, Buffoon!” exclaimed Stephen, to whom this knavish trick was highly amusing. “Mr. Tim will ‘pay dear for his whistle’ this time—unless your confession should slip out of the bag!”
“No, I put it down nearly to the bottom,” Charley replied. “He won’t be likely to open his bag again, either, for he has eaten and given away about half of the raisins.”
“I say, boys,” said Stephen, “isn’t that what they call philanthropy?”
“What?” Charles asked eagerly.
“Teaching a boy that it’s wicked to steal.”
“No; it’s the vice of perfidy!” George replied, so promptly that a keen observer would have said, “This boy is impelled by envy; he wishes he had been guilty of the same vice.”
But George was in the right; Charley’s trick was inhumanly treacherous.
“Did you intend to take one of his raisins?” Jim faltered, a wolfish look in his eyes.