Arthur Stringer

“ Then he heard the voices of Weston and the cook talking together, and later he heard the sound of their feet on the laundry stairs.
He crept half-way down his own stairs, step by step, and then stopped to listen once more. A sudden, terrible silence seemed to hang over the back of the house.
Then, on his toes, he slunk cautiously down to the kitchen. It was quite empty. Then he stole across the bare floor and quietly turned the handle of the pantry door. It creaked startlingly. He waited a minute to listen. Hearing no sound, he swung the door open and stepped into the chamber of mysteries. ”

“ Other boys ate chocolate. Even Snapsie had it as often as he liked. Why should n't he pinch some? Snapsie, upon inquiry, stated that it was great fun to pinch stuff.
Russell Wentworth Russell found that the thought of his unjust treatment was a wonderful salve to his rebellious conscience. To his unelastic little code of fitting things, the idea of stealing was nauseatingly new. But he was never let have anything he wanted. Why should n't he eat stuff between meals, the same as other boys? Why was he made such a baby of, and treated like a girl? ”

“ When Weston, the maid, came to take him out for his walk he hotly protested that he had a headache, and would not go. He wanted to be alone. This unexpected revolt brought his flurried mamma on the scene, who set down his flushed face and his restless movements as incipient scarlatina, and made him hold a clinic thermometer in his mouth to see if he had a temperature. ”

“ Dat means choc'lut."
"Oh, chocolate," said Russell, brightening, for he had understood none of Snapsie's graphically enumerated dishes, though he had vaguely felt their deliciousness, by the way in which the other boy worked his mouth and rolled his eyes. "Why, we often have chocolate at home." ”

“ The splutter and bubble of the hot grease when water was poured on it from the kettle, to make gravy, had always been a sound he took special pleasure in, and sometimes he even had the good luck to see the live crabs meet their sickening yet fascinating death by scalding. ”