"Waste not, want not!" repeated his cousin Hal, in rather a contemptuous tone. "I think it looks too stingy to servants; and no gentleman's servants, cooks especially, would like to have such a mean motto always staring them in the face."
Ben, who was not so conversant as his cousin in the ways of cooks and gentleman's servants, made no reply to these observations.
Mr. Gresham was called away whilst his nephews were looking at the other rooms in the house. Some time afterwards he heard their voices in the hall.
"Boys," said he, "what are you doing there!"
"Nothing, sir," said Hal; "you were called away from us; and we did not know which way to go."
"And have you nothing to do?" said Mr. Gresham.
"No, Sir! Nothing," said Hal, in a careless tone, like one who was well content with the state of habitual idleness.
"No, Sir, nothing!" replied Ben, in a voice of lamentation.
"Come," said Mr. Gresham, "if you have nothing to do, lads, will you unpack these two parcels for me?"
The two parcels were exactly alike, both of them well tied up with good whip-cord. Ben took his parcel to a table, and after breaking off the sealing-wax began carefully to examine the knot, and then to untie it. Hal stood still, exactly in the spot where the parcel was put into his hands, and tried first at one corner, and then at another, to pull the string off by force: