"Alas! how little do parents understand the feelings which animate the bosom of their offspring. I who was--"
"Quit your moralizing, and drive on with your story," growled Fred.
"All right, sir," replied Steel Spring, not the least disconcerted.
"I had, when kicked from the home of which I was destined to be the ornament, only a half crown in my pocket--smuggled there by an indulgent mother, who dreaded her husband's wrath. I knew that the money would purchase me a rasher of bacon and half a dozen pots of half-and-half, but that would not support me forever, you know, and it was necessary that I should stir these stumps which my heartless father had ridiculed.
"With this idea I exchanged my elegant suit of black clothes which I was wearing, and dressed myself in others of a less attractive nature; and I will also state that I received a half crown from the Hebrew with whom I traded--a piece of generosity on his part as unexpected as any thing I ever met in this world.
"After I had made the exchange I hardly knew myself, and I thought with joy that if my father's heart relented, he would not be able to discover me in the disguise which I wore. In fact, it was perfect; and for the purpose of testing it, I went to Hyde Park, and stood near the ring, and as the noble lords and ladies passed me--those, I mean, with whom I was on visiting terms--it made my heart swell to think that they did not even deign to look at me."
"I have no doubt of it," said Smith, dryly; and the fact of his being an Englishman made him appreciate the story of Steel Spring the more.
"I quitted Hyde Park, and to preserve my spirits I went to a public house, and drank a full quart of beer--a feat which I had often performed, but never with such good will. The proprietor of the house noticed the ready manner in which I emptied his pewter, and then surveying my legs, judged, very rightly, that I would make an excellent pot boy. He hinted at his want of assistance, and made me an offer of a crown a week, and the privilege of drinking the slops left in the pots. He did not have to make the proposal twice; I accepted without delay, donned a white apron, and the intended ambassador to the classic land of song and ruins went to work supplying workmen with beer and pipes. No one, to have looked at me in the bar room, would have mistrusted my noble birth, and I have often thought of the singular freaks of fortune. Some are raised by the magic wand, and others are depressed. How little did the nobility, as they gazed on my fair face, when an infant, think that the object of their admiration would one day become--"