ated
with figures of queer people with queer flat parasols; a Chinese
tea-box, in a word. The box had a lid. The lid was shut tight. But I
knew what was in that gorgeous box and I coveted it. I was very
little--I never could reach anything. There stood a chair suggestively
near the chest. I pushed the chair a little and mounted it. By
standing on tiptoe I could now reach the box. I opened it and took out
an irregular lump of sparkling sugar. I stood on the chair admiring
it. I stood too long. My grandmother came in--or was it Itke, the
housemaid?--and found me with the stolen morsel.

I saw that I was fairly caught. How could I hope to escape my captor,
when I was obliged to turn on my stomach in order to descend safely,
thus presenting my jailer with the most tempting opportunity for
immediate chastisement? I took in the situation before my grandmother
had found her voice for horror. Did I rub my eyes with my knuckles and
whimper? I wish I could report that I was thus instantly struck with a
sense of my guilt. I was impressed only with the absolute certainty of
my impending doom, and I promptly seized on a measure of compensation.
While my captor--I really think it was a grandmother--rehearsed her
entire vocabulary of reproach, from a distance sufficient to enable
her to hurl her voice at me with the best effect, I stuffed the lump
of sugar into my mouth and munched it as fast as I could. And I had
eaten it all, and had licked my sticky lips, before the avenging rod
came down.

I remember no similar lapses from righteousness, but I sinned in
lesser ways more times than there are years in my life. I sinned, and
more than once I escaped punishment by some trick or sly speech. I do
not mean that I lied outright, though that also I did, sometimes; but
I would twist my naughty speech, if forced to repeat it, in such an
artful manner, or give such ludicrous explanation of my naughty act,
that justice was overcome by laughter and threw me, as often as not, a
handful of raisins instead of a knotted strap. If by such successes I
was encouraged to cultivate my natural slyness and duplicity, I throw
the blame on my unwise preceptors, and am glad to be rid of the burden
for once.

I have said that I used to lie. I recall no particular occasion when a
lie was the cause of my disgrace; but I know that it was always my
habit, when I had some trifling adventure to report, to garnish it up
with so much detail and circumstance that