I must tell you about the silver-edged waistcoat which Bunting gave
me. Mamma asked me about it, and I told her the truth,--that it was a
present from one of the boys for my kindness to him. Well, what does she
do but writes back to Dr. Swishtail, when I went to school, thanking him
for his attention to her dear son, and sending a shilling to the good
and grateful little boy who had given me the waistcoat!

"What waistcoat is it," says the Doctor to me, "and who gave it to you?"

"Bunting gave it me, sir," says I.

"Call Bunting!" and up the little ungrateful chap came. Would you
believe it, he burst into tears,--told that the waistcoat had been given
him by his mother, and that he had been forced to give it for a debt to
Copper-Merchant, as the nasty little blackguard called me? He then
said how, for three-halfpence, he had been compelled to pay me
three shillings (the sneak! as if he had been OBLIGED to borrow the
three-halfpence!)--how all the other boys had been swindled (swindled!)
by me in like manner,--and how, with only twelve shillings, I had
managed to scrape together four guineas. . . . .

My courage almost fails me as I describe the shameful scene that
followed. The boys were called in, my own little account-book was
dragged out of my cupboard, to prove how much I had received from each,
and every farthing of my money was paid back to them. The tyrant took
the thirty shillings that my dear parents had given me, and said he
should put them into the poor-box at church; and, after having made a
long discourse to the boys about meanness and usury, he said, "Take off
your coat, Mr. Stubbs, and restore Bunting his waistcoat." I did, and
stood without coat and waistcoat in the midst of the nasty grinning