“I bet I will find it, come now,” said Oscar, with a determined air; and he commenced the search in earnest, prying into every covered dish, opening every drawer and bucket, and overhauling and disarranging every part of the closet.  Bridget was just then in too irritable a mood to bear this provoking invasion of her realm with patience.  In an angry tone, she ordered the intruder to leave the closet, but he took no notice of the command.  She repeated the order, making it more emphatic by calling him a “plague” and a “torment,” but he did not heed it.  Then she threatened to tell his parents of his misconduct, but this had no effect.  Oscar continued his search for some minutes, but without success; and he finally concluded to make his supper of bread and butter, since he could find nothing more tempting to his appetite.

The fact was, Oscar was getting in the habit of being absent from his meals, and calling for food at unseasonable hours, much to the annoyance of Bridget.  She had complained of this to his mother several times, without effect; and now she thought she would try a little expedient of her own.  So, when she cleared away the supper-table that evening, before Oscar came home, she hid away the cake and pies with which the others had been served, and left only bread and butter in the closet.  She gained her end, but the boy, in rummaging for the hidden articles, had made her half an hour’s extra work, in putting things to rights again.

As Oscar stepped out of the closet, after his solitary supper, he moved towards the youngest of the other boys, saying: 

“Here, George, open your mouth and shut your eyes, and I ’ll give you something to make you wise.”

George declined the gift, but Oscar insisted, and tried to force it upon him.  A struggle ensued, and both rolled upon the floor, the one crying and screaming with anger, and the other laughing as though he considered it good fun.  George shut his teeth firmly together, but Oscar succeeded in rubbing enough of the mysterious article upon his lips to enable him to tell what it was.  It proved to be a piece of pepper, a plate of which Oscar had found in the closet.

This little experiment, however, did not leave George in a very pleasant frame of mind.  It was some time before he got over his blubbering and pouting.  Oscar called him a “cry-baby,” for making such a fuss about a little bit of pepper, which epithet did not aid him much in forgetting the injury he had received.

After awhile, quiet and harmony were in a measure restored.  Ralph and George got their school-books, and began to look over the lessons they were to recite in the morning; but Oscar not only remained idle, himself, but seemed to try to interrupt them as much as possible, by his remarks.  By-and-bye, finding they did not take much notice of his observations, he took from his jacket pocket a small tin tube, and commenced blowing peas through it, aiming them at his brothers, at Bridget, and at the lamp.  Ralph, after two or three had taken effect on his face, got up in a pet, and took his book up stairs to the sitting-room.  George scowled and scolded, as the annoying pellets flew around his head, but he did not mean to be driven away by such small shot.  Bridget, too, soon lost her patience, as the peas rattled upon the newly-swept floor.