He d——d the tread-mill, declared he had played at up and down before now—and would go—they were compelled to give him something—the law did not suffer any man to starve, and so on.
He was rattling on in his way, without any one paying the least attention to what he said, when a lad about fourteen, decently dressed, came in, carrying a box. He placed himself beside the window, and began to display the contents of his trunk, offering for sale several respectable articles of clothing for mere trifles.
“Go home, boy,” (said a man who had just come in, with his arms loaded with good things). “What brought you here? do you want to be ruined? you have run away, you young rascal, and stole them things.”
The younker, who was the very image of a spoiled child and natural vagabond, replied with all the pertness and insolence of one that had been over indulged, “that the things were his—he had paid for his lodgings, and nobody had anything to do with him.”
“When did he come here?” enquired the man, (the landlord by this time had gone out).
“On Thursday,” he was answered.
“It is a shame,” he said, “to take in so young a boy; he should have a stick laid across his back, and sent home again.”
In defence of the landlord, it was argued, that if he did not take him in, others would; and that his things were safe here, which might not be the case elsewhere. This was admitted by our moralizer to be very true.
“Howsomever,” observed he, “all I know is this—that if the young dog is not already a thief, I know that he has come to the right place to become one.”