Roundabout Papers - Penn State University

Roundabout Paperstoast. The waiter had nothing. At any rate, fourpence Iknow was the sum I spent. And the hunger appeased, Igot on the coach a guilty being.At the last stage,—what is its name? I have forgottenin seven-and-thirty years,—there is an inn with a littlegreen and trees before it; and by the trees there is anopen carriage. It is our carriage. Yes, there are Princeand Blucher, the horses; and my parents in the carriage.Oh! how I had been counting the days until this onecame! Oh! how happy had I been to see them yesterday!But there was that fourpence. All the journey downthe toast had choked me, and the coffee poisoned me.I was in such a state of remorse about the fourpence,that I forgot the maternal joy and caresses, the tenderpaternal voice. I pull out the twenty-four shillings andeightpence with a trembling hand.“Here’s your money,” I gasp out, “which Mr. P——owes you, all but fourpence. I owed three-and-sixpenceto Hawker out of my money for a pencil-case, and I hadnone left, and I took fourpence of yours, and had somecoffee at a shop.”I suppose I must have been choking whilst utteringthis confession.“My dear boy,” says the governor, “why didn’t you goand breakfast at the hotel?”“He must be starved,” says my mother.I had confessed; I had been a prodigal; I had been takenback to my parents’ arms again. It was not a very greatcrime as yet, or a very long career of prodigality; but don’twe know that a boy who takes a pin which is not his own,will take a thousand pounds when occasion serves, bringhis parents’ gray heads with sorrow to the grave, and carryhis own to the gallows? Witness the career of Dick Idle,upon whom our friend Mr. Sala has been discoursing. Dickonly began by playing pitch-and-toss on a tombstone: playingfair, for what we know: and even for that sin he waspromptly caned by the beadle. The bamboo was ineffectualto cane that reprobate’s bad courses out of him. Frompitch-and-toss he proceeded to manslaughter if necessary:to highway robbery; to Tyburn and the rope there. Ah!heaven be thanked, my parents’ heads are still above thegrass, and mine still out of the noose.60