Master Lurcher. If you do I '1l tell again.
[Exit Backhouse.
[The rod is heard from the adjoining apartment. Hwish—Hhwish—hwish—hwish—hwish—hwish—hwish.]
[Re-enter Backhouse.
BRIGGS IN LUCK.
Enter the Knife-boy.—Hamper for Briggses!
Master Brown.—Hurray, Tom Briggs! I'll lend you my knife.
If this story does not carry its own moral, what fable does, I wonder? Before the arrival of that hamper, Master Briggs was in no better repute than any other young gentleman of the lower school; and in fact I had occasion myself, only lately, to correct Master Brown for kicking his friend's shins during the writing-lesson. But how this basket directed by his mother's housekeeper, and marked "Glass with care," (whence I conclude that it contains some jam and some bottles of wine probably, as well as the usual cake and game-pie, and half a sovereign for the elder Master B., and five new shillings for Master Decimus Briggs)—how, I say, the arrival of this basket, alters all Master Briggs's circumstances in life, and the estimation in which many persons regard him!