Matt promised haste and departed just in time, for Jack's father came in to say that now that Matt had become a gambler, his visits would have to be discontinued. Then Jack felt desolate indeed, and he cried, and began to make a series of promises, but he was cut short with the remark:
"I've heard a great deal from a promising boy; I think I'd enjoy a performing one, as a change."
Jack had thought some of developing to his father his great plan of restitution for the burned stable. But now he determined most resolutely to remand this great deed to the limbo of surprises, although six or seven years would be a great while to defer the enjoyment of observing the effect upon the doctor of the intended operation.
Then Jack's mother came in, bearing a tray containing several slices of bread and a glass of water, and she held the tray before her, exclaiming:
"Behold the wages of iniquity, my son."
Jack beheld, with a hungry glance, and determined that iniquity, besides being unpleasant, was paid for in currency of but slight intrinsic value. He recalled, somewhat to his confusion, the passage of Scripture which asserts that the wicked "have more than heart can wish," and he wondered if his spare repast might not be an indication that he was not so very wicked after all.
"Jack," said Mrs. Wittingham, "you are killing me by inches. I've reached an age when I am easily affected by anything unusual, whether it is good or bad, and everything I hear about you upsets me."
"Nobody ever says anything about the good things I do, mother," complained Jack.
Mrs. Wittingham remembered to have had some such thought at certain times in her own life, when her good deeds were regarded as actual matters of course, whereas her petty imperfections had been causes of complaint and unkindness. But to admit such a thing would be to give the boy sympathy, and should wrong-doers have the consolation which sympathy would afford? So Mrs. Wittingham lost an opportunity of at least narrowing the gulf between her only child and herself, and continued:
"Oh, dear!—I would give anything if I could understand you. I never did any of the dreadful things you do."