Was there ever a better illustration of the Thistlewood Plot—of the Gunpowder Plot—or of that policy which, here as well as there, makes offences profitable to the informer? That boy was but another Vidooq; or another First Consul of the French Empire.
And have you never, when riding by in a stage-coach, seen a little fellow at the window or the door of a house in the country crying as if his very heart would break? Did not he always stop till you got by,—and then didn't he always begin again? with the same look, the same voice, and the same outcry, refusing to be comforted? These are the fellows for office—he only wanted an augmentation of salary; that was all—and I dare say he got it.
"Ah, ah, hourra! hourra! here's a fellow's birthday!" cried a boy in my hearing once. A number had got together to play ball; but one of them having found a birthday, and not only the birthday, but the very boy it belonged to, they all gathered about him, as if they had never witnessed a conjunction of the sort before. The very fellows for a committee of inquiry!—into the affairs of a national bank, too, if you please.
Never shall I forget another incident which occurred in my presence, between two other boys. One was trying to jump over a wheel-barrow—another was going by; he stopped, and, after considering a moment, spoke:
"I'll tell you what you can't do," said he.
"Well, what is it?"
"You can't jump down your own throat."
"Well, you can't."
"Can't I though!"
The simplicity of "Well, you can't," and the roguishness of "Can't I though!" tickled me prodigiously. They reminded me of sparring I had seen elsewhere—I should not like to say where—having a great respect for the Temples of Justice and the Halls of Legislation.