When the proper time arrives, all that the gentleman intended, and all that he did not intend, will be brought to light, in the Dial, or the Down-Easter, together with all that he ought to have intended, and the rest that he clearly meant to intend: – so that it will all come very straight in the end.

There is no just ground, therefore, for the charge brought against me by certain ignoramuses – that I have never written a moral tale, or, in more precise words, a tale with a moral. They are not the critics predestined to bring me out, and develop my morals: – that is the secret. By and by the North American Quarterly Humdrum will make them ashamed of their stupidity. In the meantime, by way of staying execution – by way of mitigating the accusations against me – I offer the sad history appended, – a history about whose obvious moral there can be no question whatever, since he who runs may read it in the large capitals which form the title of the tale. I should have credit for this arrangement – a far wiser one than that of La Fontaine and others, who reserve the impression to be conveyed until the last moment, and thus sneak it in at the fag end of their fables.

Defuncti injuriâ ne afficiantur was a law of the twelve tables, and De mortuis nil nisi bonum is an excellent injunction – even if the dead in question be nothing but dead small beer. It is not my design, therefore, to vituperate my deceased friend, Toby Dammit. He was a sad dog, it is true, and a dog's death it was that he died; but he himself was not to blame for his vices. They grew out of a personal defect in his mother. She did her best in the way of flogging him while an infant – for duties to her well-regulated mind were always pleasures, and babies like tough steaks, or the modern Greek olive trees, are invariably the better for beating – but, poor woman! she had the misfortune to be left-handed, and a child flogged left-handedly had better be left unflogged. The world revolves from right to left. It will not do to whip a baby from left to right. If each blow in the proper direction drives an evil propensity out, it follows that every thump in an opposite one knocks its quota of wickedness in. I was often present at Toby's chastisements, and, even by the way in which he kicked, I could perceive that he was getting worse and worse every day. At last I saw, through the tears in my eyes, that there was no hope of the villain at all, and one day when he had been cuffed until he grew so black in the face that one might have mistaken him for a little African, and no effect had been produced beyond that of making him wriggle himself into a fit, I could stand it no longer, but went down upon my knees forthwith, and, uplifting my voice, made prophecy of his ruin.

The fact is that his precocity in vice was awful. At five months of age he used to get into such passions that he was unable to articulate. At six months, I caught him gnawing a pack of cards. At seven months he was in the constant habit of catching and kissing the female babies. At eight months he peremptorily refused to put his signature to the Temperance pledge. Thus he went on increasing in iniquity, month after month, until, at the close of the first year, he not only insisted upon wearing moustaches, but had contracted a propensity for cursing and swearing, and for backing his assertions by bets.

Through this latter most ungentlemanly practice, the ruin which I had predicted to Toby Dammit overtook him at last. The fashion had a so that, when he came to be a man, he could scarcely utter a sentence without interlarding it with a proposition to gamble. Not that he actually laid wagers – no. I will do my friend the justice to say that he would as soon have laid eggs. With him the thing was a mere formula – nothing more. His expressions on this head had no meaning attached to them whatever. They were simple if not altogether innocent expletives – imaginative phrases wherewith to round off a sentence. When he said »I'll bet you so and so,« nobody ever thought of taking him up; but still I could not help thinking it my duty to put him down. The habit was an immoral one, and so I told him. It was a vulgar one – this I begged him to believe. It was discountenanced by society – here I said nothing but the truth. It was forbidden by act of Congress – here I had not the slightest intention of telling a lie.