“Surely you dream?” said his mother.

“No, I don’t indeed,” replied Dicky.  “You put them away directly the gentlemen said they would stay to dine, and observed what a deal of trouble visitors do give.”

Any one will easily believe that this made Mrs. Random look very confused.  She hardly knew what to reply, but she turned it off in the best manner she could, and said: 

“It is you, Richard, who trouble me more than the visits of my friends.  I am happy to see them always, but on some days more than others.  To-day, you know, we have been preparing for your company, and therefore the reserve I have kept would not have been made but on your account.  The pastry was intended for your visitors, and not your father’s.  However, if you are such a child that you cannot wait till night, they shall be brought to table now; but, remember, I will not order any more to be made, and you shall provide for your playmates out of the money put by to purchase the magic-lantern and the books.”

Richard looked quite down when he heard this sentence, and more so when he saw the pastry placed on the table.

Dear me, how soon had the tarts and custards disappeared, if one of each had been served round to the company!  But the gentlemen were too polite even to taste them, and father and mother declined eating any.  Richard’s sister said she could very well wait till supper; hence they were all saved.  But Dicky was afterwards very severely taken to task for speaking out of time, when he was not spoken to.

When evening came, and the little visitors were assembled, Richard, who had seen some of the sports at a country fair, would show his dexterity to amuse his young party.  He took up the poker, and, supposing it to be a pole, performed some imitations.  But, unable long to preserve it upright from its weight, the sooty end fell on Master Snapper’s book, who was reading a little work upon “Affability.”  The blow fairly knocked it out of his hand, and made a great smear on his frilled shirt, at which a loud laugh ensued.  Now Master Snapper could not bear to be laughed at, and was so much out of humor all the evening that he would not play.

Little Dick never once, all this time, thought that if it had fallen on his playfellow’s toe, it might have lamed him, and he would at least have had to carry him a pick-a-back home; nor did he think who was to have paid the doctor; but, pleased with the mirth he had made, he went upstairs and fetched down one of the pistols, which his father kept in a private drawer.  Then, pulling in his rocking-horse, he fancied he was one of the Light Horse, and mounted it to show the sword exercise, and how he could shoot a Frenchman or a Turk at full gallop.  He had no business with a rocking-horse or a pistol among young ladies, but he never thought if it were proper or not, and much less if the pistol were loaded.