The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse [33]
about five years old, who, with eagerness exclaimed--'I forget you! no that I never shall. If I was to go a hundred thousand miles off, I am sure I shall never forget you. What! do you think I should ever, as long as I live, if it is a million of years, forget my own dear papa and mamma? No; that I should not, I am very, very sure I never should.' 'Well, but Tom,' interrupted the gentleman, 'if in a million of years you should not forget us, I dare say, in less than two months you will forget our advice, and before you have been at school half that time, you will get to squabbling with and tricking the other boys, just as they do with one another; and instead of playing at all times with the strictest openness and honour, you will, I sadly fear, learn to cheat, and deceive, and pay no attention to what your mother and I have been telling you.' 'No', that I am sure I sha'n't!' replied the boy. 'What! do you think I shall be so wicked as to turn a thief, and cheat people?' 'I dare say, my dear,' resumed the father, 'you will not do what we call thieving; but as I know there are many naughty boys in all schools, I am afraid they will teach you to commit dishonourable actions, and to tell you there is no harm in them, and that they are signs of cleverness and spirit, and qualifications very necessary for every boy to possess.' 'Aye, that's sure enough,' said the boy, who appeared about ten years old, 'for they almost all declare, that if a boy is not sharp and cunning, he might almost as well be out of the world as in it. But, as you say, papa, I hate such behaviour, I am sure there is one of our boys, who is so wonderfully clever and acute, as they call him, that I detest ever having any thing to do with him; for unless one watches him as a cat would watch a mouse, he is sure to cheat or play one some trick or other.' 'What sort of tricks do you mean?' inquired the little boy. 'Why, I will tell you,' replied the other. 'You know nothing of the games we have at school, so if I was to tell you how he plays at them, you would not understand what I meant. But you know what walking about blindfold is, don't you? Well! one day, about a dozen boys agreed to have a blind race, and the boy who got nearest the goal, which was a stick driven in the ground with a shilling upon the top of it, was to win the shilling, provided he did it fairly without seeing.' 'I suppose,' interrupted Tom, 'you mean the boy who got to the stick first.' 'No, I do not,' replied his brother, 'I mean what I say, the boy who got nearest it, no matter whether he came first or last; the fun was to see them try to keep in a straight path, with their eyes tied up, whilst they wander quite in the wrong, and not to try who could run fastest. Well! when they, were all blinded, and twisted round three or four times before they were suffered to set off, they directed their steps the way they thought would directly conduct them to the goal; and some of them had almost reached it, when Sharply (the boy I mentioned) who had placed a shilling upon the stick, for they drew lots who should do that, and he who furnished the money was to stand by it, to observe who won it by coming nearest; well, Sharply, I say, just as they came close to it, moved away softly to another place, above three yards distant from any of them (for I should have told you, that if none of them got within three yards, the shilling was to remain his, and they were each to give him a penny.) So then he untied their eyes, and insisted upon it they had all of them lost. But two or three of us happened to be by, and so we said he had cheated them, and ought not to keep the money, as it had fairly been won by Smyth. But he would not give it up, so it made a quarrel between him and Smyth, and at last they fought, and Mr. Chiron confined them both in the school all the rest of the afternoon, and when he heard what the quarrel was about, he took the shilling from Sharply, and called him a mean-spirited cheat; but he would not let Smyth have it, because he said he deserved to lose it for fighting