{"id":"01KG8AKCKYNCB9B6JGKP9S11A8","cid":"bafkreihnh7yk2vuoyczueiof3juyi3s7q2f7puwxv6hbwgc5xxqlnrm3vu","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":5414,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:57.722Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 4","source_file":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","start_line":5355,"text":"why, in a plebeian way, a perfect Chesterfield; very intelligent,\r\ntoo--quick as a flash. But, such suavity! 'Please sir! please sir!'\r\nalways bowing and saying, 'Please sir.' In the strangest way, too,\r\ncombining a filial affection with a menial respect. Took such warm,\r\nsingular interest in my affairs. Wanted to be considered one of the\r\nfamily--sort of adopted son of mine, I suppose. Of a morning, when I\r\nwould go out to my stable, with what childlike good nature he would trot\r\nout my nag, 'Please sir, I think he's getting fatter and fatter.' 'But,\r\nhe don't look very clean, does he?' unwilling to be downright harsh with\r\nso affectionate a lad; 'and he seems a little hollow inside the haunch\r\nthere, don't he? or no, perhaps I don't see plain this morning.' 'Oh,\r\nplease sir, it's just there I think he's gaining so, please.' Polite\r\nscamp! I soon found he never gave that wretched nag his oats of nights;\r\ndidn't bed him either. Was above that sort of chambermaid work. No end\r\nto his willful neglects. But the more he abused my service, the more\r\npolite he grew.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, sir, some way you mistook him.\"\r\n\r\n\"Not a bit of it. Besides, sir, he was a boy who under a Chesterfieldian\r\nexterior hid strong destructive propensities. He cut up my horse-blanket\r\nfor the bits of leather, for hinges to his chest. Denied it point-blank.\r\nAfter he was gone, found the shreds under his mattress. Would\r\nslyly break his hoe-handle, too, on purpose to get rid of hoeing.\r\nThen be so gracefully penitent for his fatal excess of industrious\r\nstrength. Offer to mend all by taking a nice stroll to the nighest\r\nsettlement--cherry-trees in full bearing all the way--to get the broken\r\nthing cobbled. Very politely stole my pears, odd pennies, shillings,\r\ndollars, and nuts; regular squirrel at it. But I could prove nothing.\r\nExpressed to him my suspicions. Said I, moderately enough, 'A little\r\nless politeness, and a little more honesty would suit me better.' He\r\nfired up; threatened to sue for libel. I won't say anything about his\r\nafterwards, in Ohio, being found in the act of gracefully putting a bar\r\nacross a rail-road track, for the reason that a stoker called him the\r\nrogue that he was. But enough: polite boys or saucy boys, white boys or\r\nblack boys, smart boys or lazy boys, Caucasian boys or Mongol boys--all\r\nare rascals.\"\r\n\r\n\"Shocking, shocking!\" nervously tucking his frayed cravat-end out of\r\nsight. \"Surely, respected sir, you labor under a deplorable\r\nhallucination. Why, pardon again, you seem to have not the slightest\r\nconfidence in boys, I admit, indeed, that boys, some of them at least,\r\nare but too prone to one little foolish foible or other. But, what then,\r\nrespected sir, when, by natural laws, they finally outgrow such things,\r\nand wholly?\"\r\n\r\nHaving until now vented himself mostly in plaintive dissent of canine\r\nwhines and groans, the man with the brass-plate seemed beginning to\r\nsummon courage to a less timid encounter. But, upon his maiden essay,\r\nwas not very encouragingly handled, since the dialogue immediately\r\ncontinued as follows:\r\n\r\n\"Boys outgrow what is amiss in them? From bad boys spring good men? Sir,\r\n'the child is father of the man;' hence, as all boys are rascals, so are\r\nall men. But, God bless me, you must know these things better than I;\r\nkeeping an intelligence office as you do; a business which must furnish\r\npeculiar facilities for studying mankind. Come, come up here, sir;\r\nconfess you know these things pretty well, after all. Do you not know\r\nthat all men are rascals, and all boys, too?\"\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 4"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJM4RS4GSX8JEXTB47AGF","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKCM88YC2RNMQQDBH6JQA","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AKDA4R9894APG4TPXTGNM","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:02.686Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:10.116Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}