PAGE 3
The Sneak
by
“Please, sir, Jenkins has made a blot!”
“Please, sir, Allen junior is cutting his name on the desk!”
Perhaps the indignant Allen junior would here take occasion to acknowledge his sense of this attention by a private kick under the desk. Then it would be–
“All right, Joe Allen; I’ll sneak of you, you see if I don’t!”
No one could do it better.
Amiable little pet, how we all loved him!
Sneaking seems to be a sort of disease with some people. There’s no other way of accounting for it. It sometimes seems as if the mere sight of happiness or success in others is the signal for its breaking out. As we have said, its two leading motives are cowardice and jealousy. Just as the cur will wait till the big dog has passed by, and then, slinking up behind, give a surreptitious snap at his heels, so the sneak, instead of standing face to face with his rival, and instead of entering into fair competition with him, creeps up unobserved and inflicts his wound on the sly.
Thus it has been with all traitors and spies and deserters and mischief- makers since the world began. What a list one could give of the sneaks of history, beginning at that arch-serpent who marred the happiness of Eden, down to some of the informers and renegades of the present day!
Boys cannot be too early on their guard against sneaking habits. No truly English boy, we are glad to think, is likely to fall into them; still, even among our own acquaintance, it is sad to think how many there are who are not wholly free from the reproach.
The child in the nursery who begins to tell tales to his mother of his little brothers and sisters will, if not corrected, grow up to be just such another sneak as Jerry; and Jerry, unless he cures himself of his vice, will become a mere odious meddler and scandalmonger in society, and may arrive at the unenviable distinction of being the most detested man of his generation.
Every disease has its cure. Be honest, be brave, be kind, and have always a good conscience, and you cannot be a sneak.