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“Get larning, lad!—get larning! Larning’s a greät thing. Yo’ shan read i’ this big picture-book when you can spell gradely,” had been Simon’s precept and inducement; and Jabez, to whom that big pictorial Bible was a mysterious unexplored crypt, did try with all his little might.

“J-a-c-k—Jack, w-a-s—was, a g-o-o-d—good, b-o——”

“And I hope you’re a good boy, as well as Jack,” said Joshua Brookes abruptly, as he put his head into the room, and put a stop to the lesson at the same time. “But, hey-day” (observing the swollen nose and bruised forehead), “You’re been in the wars. Good boys don’t fight.”

“Then what did Bill Barnes throw stones at ar pussy for? Good boys dunnot hurt kittlins,” said Jabez, nothing daunted.

Bess explained.

“Um!” quoth Joshua, when she had finished, “he’s fond of his kitten, is he?” and drawing Jabez towards him by the shoulder, with one finger uplifted as a caution, he looked down on the shrinking child, and said, impressively—

“Never fight if you can help it, Jabez; but if you fight to save a poor dumb animal from ill-usage, or to protect the weak against the strong, Jotty Brucks is not the man to blame you. Here, lad,” and into the pinafore of Jabez went the remainder of the “humbugs.”