The boy blushed rather.
"Yes. When it's time to go back to Smithfield on a Saturday night, I go
into the dining-room to shake hands, and he gives it to me; but he don't
speak to me much, you know, and I don't care about going to Bryanstone
Square, except for the tip (of course that's important), because I am
made to dine with the children, and they are quite little ones; and a
great cross French governess, who is always crying and shrieking after
them, and finding fault with them. My uncle generally has his dinner
parties on Saturday, or goes out; and aunt gives me ten shillings and
sends me to the play; that's better fun than a dinner party." Here the
lad blushed again. "I used," said he, "when I was younger, to stand on
the stairs and prig things out of the dishes when they came out from
dinner, but I'm past that now. Maria (that's my cousin) used to take the
sweet things and give 'em to the governess. Fancy! she used to put lumps
of sugar into her pocket and eat them in the schoolroom! Uncle Hobson
don't live in such good society as Uncle Newcome. You see, Aunt Hobson,
she's very kind, you know, and all that, but I don't think she's what you
call _comme il faut_"
"Why, how are you to judge?" asks the father, amused at the lad's candid
prattle, "and where does the difference lie?"
"I can't tell you what it is, or how it is," the boy answered, "only one
can't help seeing the difference.
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