THE THIEF AND THE BOY.
An arch mischievous Boy, sitting by the side of a well, observed a noted Thief coming towards him. The little dissembler, wiping his eyes, affected to be in great distress. The Thief asking him what was the matter? ah! says the Boy, I shall be severely flogged, for in attempting to get some water, I have dropped the silver tankard into the well. Upon this the Thief, eager for a prize, stripped off his cloaths, and went down to the bottom to search for it; where having groped about to no purpose, he came up again, but found neither the Boy nor the cloaths, the little wag having run off with and hidden them, and left the Thief to look for the tankard at his leisure.
APPLICATION.
Nothing gives more entertainment to honest men than to see rogues and sharpers tricked and punished in the pursuit of their schemes of villainy, by making their own contrivances instrumental in bringing down their wickedness upon their own heads. In these instances, Justice seems as it were to be acting in person, and saves the trouble of publicly enforcing punishment by the penal laws; but indeed vice carries with it its own punishment, and the misery attendant upon it in this world, seems always pretty exactly balanced to its various degrees of enormity. The abandoned man drags on a contemptible or infamous life, with a constantly deadened or disturbed conscience, and amidst associates like himself, where he can never hope to meet with either friendship or fidelity.