round to father, smiling, although she had tears in her eyes, and she
took his hand, and with her other hand drew me to her. "Is he not a
noble boy?" says she to my father: "and only nine years old!"--"Faith,"
says my father, "he IS a good lad, Susan. Thank thee, my boy: and here
is a crown-piece in return for thy bottle-screw--it shall open us a
bottle of the very best too," says my father. And he kept his word.
I always was fond of good wine (though never, from a motive of proper
self-denial, having any in my cellar); and, by Jupiter! on this night I
had my little skinful,--for there was no stinting,--so pleased were my
dear parents with the bottle-screw. The best of it was, it only cost me
threepence originally, which a chap could not pay me.

Seeing this game was such a good one, I became very generous towards my
parents; and a capital way it is to encourage liberality in children.
I gave mamma a very neat brass thimble, and she gave me a half-guinea
piece. Then I gave her a very pretty needle-book, which I made myself
with an ace of spades from a new pack of cards we had, and I got Sally,
our maid, to cover it with a bit of pink satin her mistress had given
her; and I made the leaves of the book, which I vandyked very nicely,
out of a piece of flannel I had had round my neck for a sore throat.
It smelt a little of hartshorn, but it was a beautiful needle-book; and
mamma was so delighted with it, that she went into town and bought me a
gold-laced hat. Then I bought papa a pretty china tobacco-stopper: but
I am sorry to say of my dear father that he was not so generous as my
mamma or myself, for he only burst out laughing, and did not give me so
much as a half-crown piece, which was the least I expected from him. "I
shan't give you anything, Bob, this time," says he; "and I wish, my boy,
you would not make any more such presents,--for, really, they are too
expensive." Expensive indeed! I hate meanness,--even in a father.