“Yes, I do,” said Harry; “but the thing is, how am I to make sure? I’ll go and make inquiries.”
Harry went and asked the other servants, and the people about the place, a few questions, and at last he found out that Master Dick had been seen going pretty often into a shed where we kept some empty cases and lumber. So Harry went to it quietly, and turned it thoroughly over, and then he came on a box hidden away that aroused his suspicions. He broke the box open, and inside it he found an old pistol and a belt, and a pair of his old sea-boots, that must have been taken from our spare room upstairs, and an old red flannel shirt, and a lot of penny numbers about boy pirates and highwaymen, and right at the bottom of the box two pairs of my best stockings and some old bows of ribbons, and one or two trifles like that, which the young rascal had evidently taken at different times when he had been at work about the house.
Harry came and told me, and said he supposed the pistol and the belt, and the red shirt, and the boots were for the young gentleman to dress himself up in when he took to the road or to the sea, whichever it was to be, and my stockings and the bits of ribbons were the satins and jewels, etc., which he was going to present to Lucy, if she consented to elope with him, and be the bride of the chief of the “band of daring fellows,” which was himself, viz. Dashing Dick.
“Oh, Harry!” I said, “how shocking! Who would believe that a boy, decently brought up, could be so wicked!”
Of course, after we found he had taken things, we couldn’t keep him, even if we had looked over that letter to our nursemaid, and so Harry went to his grandmother and told her that our place didn’t suit her boy, as he had too much liberty, and then he told her that the boy had taken one or two little things, and he must be punished. We shouldn’t, of course, give him into custody and ruin him for life for my stockings and Harry’s boots, but that sort of thing, if not checked in time, would go on till it became wholesale robbery.
The old lady was very much upset, and said, what could she do, as the boy was quite beyond her control. So Harry said he would try and think, but he should give the boy notice, and send him home, as he couldn’t have him about the place. If he overlooked it, it would be an encouragement to the boy to go on in his evil courses.
That evening, after his work was done, my young gentleman was told he wouldn’t be wanted any more, and Harry made him come into the kitchen and unpack his box before all the servants to try and make him ashamed of himself. The other servants laughed at the pistol and the red shirt, but Harry told them it was no laughing matter, as the young lad would come to ruin the way he was going on; and then he discharged him and gave him a most severe lecture, telling him to think himself lucky he wasn’t given into custody.
But the boy was very sullen and defiant, and though he didn’t say anything to Harry, as he was going he turned to Lucy, who was in the kitchen, and he said, “This is your doing, and you shall pay for it.” And he gave her such a glance with his eyes as he went out of the door that the girl came to me and said she was quite frightened.
“What nonsense, Lucy!” I said; “it’s only his brag. It’s something he’s picked up out of one of the wretched tales he has been reading.”
“I don’t know, ma’am,” answered Lucy; “it’s my belief that he’s off his head; and I’ve heard of boys doing dreadful things when they’re like that. I sha’n’t feel safe till he’s out of the place.”