he has never been taught better."

"More was I, sir, but I don't go poaching, and stealing apples and eggs,
and ducks and chickens. Why, he makes that wicked old woman his grandam
fat with the things he steals and takes to her."

"Well, that shows there's some good in him," cried Tom, basing himself
upon the Vicar's speech.

"Master Tom," cried David, digging his fork down into the earth as if to
impale fierce, evil thoughts with its tines, "I'm surperrised at you.
Good! What, to go stealing an' portching to feed up a wicked old woman,
who spends all her time trying to curse. That's a shocking sentiment,
sir, and one that arn't becoming. It arn't good, and there arn't no
good in Pete Warboys, and never will be. He's a bad stock, and if you
was to take him and plant him in good soil, and then work him with a
scion took off a good tree, and put on some graftin' wax to keep out all
the wet and cold, do you think he'd ever come to be a decent fruit tree?
Because if you do, you're wrong. He never could, and never would, come
to anything better than a bad old cankering crab sort o' thing. No, my
lad, it would just be waste of time, and nothing else."

Still Tom did not feel at all convinced, but said no more.

David did though. It was pleasant to the back standing there, with one
foot resting upon the great five-pronged fork; and as he stood with his
fingers on the handle, he kept his left arm across his loins, and gave
Tom a cunning leer.

"It's all right, sir; taters won't hurt. Tatering's a thing you ought
to take your time over. The longer they lie out here without the sun on
them, the harder the skins will be, and the better they'll keep."

Tom stopped talking to David for some time longer, but his mind was not
bent upon the vegetable kingdom as represented by the tuber commonly
known as a "tater," but upon that portion of the animal kingdom familiar
to him as Pete Warboys.

Now it so happened that a couple of days later, Uncle Richard was going
out on business in the nearest town, leaving Tom to amuse himself as he
pleased.

"What shall I do, uncle?" said Tom. "Is there anything to grind?"

"No; you are not out enough in the open air. Go and get blackberries,
or mushrooms, or something to take you for a long walk. I shall be home
to tea."

Tom had been indoors so much, that at first he felt unwilling to go; but
that feeling soon wore off, and he started for a long jaunt out through
the firs, to