"Not the general idea, lad."
After a while, and when Master Hinchford was scratching away with his pen, the father said—
"You don't say anything about Mattie."
"I think it was very kind of you," said the youth; "and I think—somehow—that Mattie will be grateful."
"Pooh! pooh!" remarked the father, "you'll never make a first-rate city man, if you believe in gratitude. Look at the world sternly, boy. Put not your trust in anything turning out the real and genuine article—work everything by figures."
Master Hinchford looked at his sire, as though he scarcely understood him.
"I must bring you up to understand human nature, Sid—what a bad article it is—plated with a material that soon wears off, if rubbed smartly. Human nature is everywhere the same, and if you be only on your guard, you may take advantage of it, instead of letting it take advantage of you. Now, this girl is a specimen, which, at my own expense, we will experimentalize upon. In that stray, my boy, you shall see the natural baseness of mankind—or girl-kind."
"Don't you think that she'll come again?"
"For the sixpence, to be sure! Every Saturday night, with a long story of how honest she has been all the week. Here we shall see a girl, who, by her own statement, and with a struggle, can keep honest now—note the effect of indiscriminate alms-giving."
"Of rewarding a girl for stealing my brooch, pa."