Australian Tales - Setis

up, just then, and save him the shame of confronting his kind hostess,
and confessing his folly in thus frightening her boy; which he really did
not intend to do.
“No, no, Jamie! Mr. Grinn will not eat you. He is a kind gentleman,
and loves nice little boys.”
“Yes, mammy, he will eat me. Hoo! hoo-o!” roared Jamie.
“Nonsense, my sonnie! he won't eat you. Come in with me,” said the
lady, walking into Mr. Grinn's studio, with Jamie in her arms, his little
eyes staring with terror.
Mr. Grinn blushed and shivered, as guilty men usually do, while he
stammered out an awkward explanation, the effect of which was to
incline the lady to the horrible belief that he really had cannibalish
designs upon her chubby little son. Few modest men have ever felt more
abashed than poor old Grinn did, at the look of contemptuous surprise
which over-spread the handsome features of his hostess. She spoke not a
word, but, hugging her trembling boy to her breast, walked out of the
room with a calm dignity and closed the door, leaving her guest as
miserably chapfallen as if he had been publicly exposed as an impostor.
His studies were completely upset for that day, and his lecture at night
was a failure.
While I feel a good deal of sympathy for my unlucky friend, under the
peculiar circumstances, I cannot too strongly denounce the practice of
frightening children, either by threatening to eat them, or by invoking
“Old Daddy Long-legs,” or any other mystical nobody, to catch them.
And though I have a thorough contempt for old bogies in general, I think
I could countenance a special one, whose office should be to nightly
twitch the noses of all disseminators of hideous ghosts and goblin stories;
the tendency of which is to spoil promising children, to oppress their
young brains with pernicious trash, and terrify them into miserable
imbeciles.