seized upon his imagination, had not his senses
been forcibly assailed at this instant by the delicious odours and
tempting sight of certain cakes and jellies in a pastrycook's shop.

'Oh, uncle,' said he, as his uncle was going to turn the corner to
pursue the road to Bristol, 'look at those jellies!' pointing to a
confectioner's shop. 'I must buy some of those good things, for I have
got some halfpence in my pocket.'

'Your having halfpence in your pocket is an excellent reason for
eating,' said Mr. Gresham, smiling.

'But I really am hungry,' said Hal. 'You know, uncle, it is a good while
since breakfast.'

His uncle, who was desirous to see his nephews act without restraint,
that he might judge their characters, bid them do as they pleased.

'Come, then, Ben, if you've any halfpence in your pocket.'

'I'm not hungry,' said Ben.

'I suppose _that_ means that you've no halfpence,' said Hal, laughing,
with the look of superiority which he had been taught to think _the
rich_ might assume towards those who were convicted either of poverty or
economy.

'Waste not, want not,' said Ben to himself.

Contrary to his cousin's surmise, he happened to have two pennyworth of
halfpence actually in his pocket.

At the very moment Hal stepped into the pastrycook's shop a poor,
industrious man with a wooden leg, who usually sweeps the dirty corner
of the walk which turns at this spot to the Wells, held his hat to Ben,
who, after glancing his eye at the petitioner's well-worn broom,
instantly produced his twopence.

'I wish I had more halfpence for you, my good man,' said he; 'but I've
only twopence.'

Hal came out of Mr. Millar's, the confectioner's shop, with a hatful of
cakes in his hand. Mr. Millar's dog was sitting on the flags before the
door, and he looked up with a wistful, begging eye at Hal, who was
eating a queen-cake. Hal, who was wasteful even in his good-nature,
threw a whole queen-cake to the dog, who swallowed it at a single
mouthful.

'There goes twopence in the form of a queen-cake,' said Mr. Gresham.

Hal next offered some of his cakes to his uncle and cousin; but they
thanked him, and refused to eat any, because, they said, they were not
hungry; so he ate and ate as he walked along, till at last he stopped
and said:

'This bun tastes so bad after the queen-cakes, I can't bear it!' and he
was going to fling it from him into the river.

'Oh, it is a pity to waste that good bun; we may be glad of