respective slates--a point of education to which Mr. Morton attended with
great care. As soon as his father's back was turned, Master Tom's eyes
wandered from the slate to the muffin, as it leered at him from the slop-
basin. Never did Pythian sibyl, seated above the bubbling spring, utter
more oracular eloquence to her priest, than did that muffin--at least the
parts of it yet extant--utter to the fascinated senses of Master Tom.
First he sighed; then he moved round on his stool; then he got up; then
he peered at the muffin from a respectful distance; then he gradually
approached, and walked round, and round, and round it--his eyes getting
bigger and bigger; then he peeped through the glass-door into the shop,
and saw his father busily engaged with the old lady; then he began to
calculate and philosophise, perhaps his father had done breakfast;
perhaps he would not come back at all; if he came back, he would not miss
one corner of the muffin; and if he did miss it, why should Tom be
supposed to have taken it? As he thus communed with himself, he drew
nearer into the fatal vortex, and at last with a desperate plunge, he
seized the triangular temptation,--

"And ere a man had power to say 'Behold!'
The jaws of Thomas had devoured it up."

Sidney, disturbed from his studies by the agitation of his companion,
witnessed this proceeding with great and conscientious alarm. "O Tom!"
said he, "what will your papa say?"

"Look at that!" said Tom, putting his fist under Sidney's reluctant
nose. "If father misses it, you'll say the cat took it. If you don't--
my eye, what a wapping I'll give you!"

Here Mr. Morton's voice was heard wishing the lady "Good morning!" and