“Tommy,” it was Miss Margaret’s voice. “Tommy, I want to give you a box of chocolates to-morrow, but if you ask once more to-day for the bottle of sweets, I shall keep the chocolates for myself.”
“There, you hear,” said Mammy, “an’ you do know now, Tommy, that what Miss Margaret says that she do mean.”
Tommy nodded a little shamefacedly. “Yes, I know,” he assented; “I remember.”
When Tommy came in from play two hours later he walked up to the kitchen cupboard.
“Mammy,” he demanded eagerly, holding up his hands to the shelf out of reach, “Mammy, I tell ee, do give I one o’ they Lib....”
Then came recollection. “Oh,” he said, “I had a’most forgot.”
His outstretched hands dropped to his sides, he clutched the stuff of his trousers to keep the restless fingers still, and with very tightly closed lips turned his back on the cupboard and the kitchen, and walked upstairs to bed.
Thus it was that Tommy took the first conscious and determined step towards the improvement of his moral character.