Page:Stubbs's Calendar or The Fatal Boots.djvu/24

 for they would insist upon treating me. Well, in a week, when theirs was gone, and they had but their threepence a week to look to for the rest of the half-year, what did I do? Why, I am proud to say that three-halfpence out of the threepence a week of almost all the young gentlemen at Dr. Swishtail's, came into my pocket. Suppose, for instance, Tom Hicks wanted a slice of gingerbread, who had the money? Little Bob Stubbs to be sure. "Hicks," I used to say, "I'll buy you threehalfp'orth of gingerbread, if you'll give me threepence next Saturday: and he agreed, and next Saturday came, and he very often could not pay me more than three-halfpence, then there was the threepence I was to have the next Saturday. I'll tell you what I did for a whole half-year:—I lent a chap, by the name of Dick Bunting, three-half-pence the first Saturday, for threepence the next; he could not pay me more than half when Saturday came, and I'm blest if I did not make him pay me three-half-pence for three and twenty weeks running, making two shillings and ten-pence-halfpenny. But