Tommy Grimes was sometimes a good boy, and sometimes a bad boy; and when he was a bad boy, he was a very bad boy. Now his mother used to say to him: “Tommy, Tommy, be a good boy, and don't go out of the street, or else Mr. Miacca will take you.” But still when he was a bad boy he would go out of the street; and one day, sure enough, he had scarcely got round the corner, when Mr. Miacca did catch him and popped him into a bag upside down, and took him off to his house. When Mr. Miacca got Tommy inside, he pulled him out of the bag and set him down, and felt his arms and legs. “You're rather tough,” says he; “but you're all I've got for supper, and you'll not taste bad boiled. But body o' me, I've forgot the herbs, and it's bitter you'll taste without herbs. Sally! Here, I say, Sally!” and he called Mrs. Miacca.
So Mrs. Miacca came out of another room and said: “What d'ye want, my dear?”
“Oh, here's a little boy for supper,” said Mr. Miacca, “and I've forgot the herbs. Mind him, will ye, while I go for them.”
“All right, my love,” says Mrs. Miacca, and off he goes.
Then Tommy Grimes said to Mrs. Miacca: “Does Mr. Miacca always have little boys for supper?”
“Mostly, my dear,” said Mrs. Miacca, “if little boys are bad enough, and get in his way.”
“And don't you have anything else but boy-meat? No pudding?” asked Tommy.
“Ah, I loves pudding,” says Mrs. Miacca. “But it's not often the likes of me gets pudding.”
“Why, my mother is making a pudding this very day,” said Tommy Grimes, “and I am sure she'd give you some, if I............