So he stepped forward, presenting his halfpenny, offering to toss up with the stable boy, who, after looking him full in the face, accepted the proposal, and threw his halfpenny into the air. “Head or tail?” cried he. “Head,” replied Lawrence, and it came up head. He seized the penny, surprised at his own success, and would have gone instantly to have laid it out in nuts; but the stable boy stopped him, and tempted him to throw again. This time Lawrence lost; he threw again and won; and so he went on, sometimes losing, but most frequently winning, till half the morning was lost. At last, however, finding himself the master of three halfpence, said he would play no more. The stable boy, grumbling, swore he would have his revenge another time, and Lawrence went and bought his nuts. “It is a good thing,” said he to himself, “to play at pitch farthing; the next time I want a halfpenny I’ll not ask my father for it, nor go to work neither.” Satisfied with this resolution, he sat down to crack his nuts at his leisure, upon the horse block in the inn yard. Here, whilst he ate, he overheard the conversation of the stable boys and postilions. At first their shocking oaths and loud wrangling frightened and shocked him; for Lawrence, though lazy, had not yet learned to be a wicked boy. But, by degrees, he was accustomed to the swearing and quarrelling, and took a delight and interest in their disputes and battles. As this was an amusement which he could enjoy without any sort of exertion, he soon grew so fond of it, that every day he returned to the stable yard, and the horse block became his constant seat. Here he found some relief from the insupportable fatigue of doing nothing, and here, hour after hour, with his elbows on his knees, and his head on his hands, he sat, the spectator of wickedness. Gaming, cheating and lying soon became familiar to him; and, to complete his ruin, he formed a sudden and close intimacy with the stable boy (a very bad boy) with whom he had first begun to game. The consequences of this intimacy we shall presently see. But it is now time to inquire what little Jem had been doing all this while. One day, after Jem had finished his task, the gardener asked him to stay a little while, to help him to carry some geranium pots into the hall. Jem, always active and obliging, readily stayed from play, and was carrying in a heavy flower pot, when his mistress crossed the hall. “What a terrible litter!” said she, “you are making here—why don’t you wipe your shoes upon the mat?” Jem turned to look for the mat, but he saw none. “Oh,” said the lady recollecting herself, “I can’t blame you, for there is no mat.” “No, ma’am,” said the gardener, “nor I don’t know when, if ever, the man will bring home those mats you bespoke, ma’am.”