John Gay was eight years old. He was not a good boy, for he now and then told what was not true, and that is not right, for all boys and girls should speak the truth.

One day when his Aunt was in the room, John came in, and he saw her with a plum cake in her hand. She told him when she left the room, that he must not touch. He said, “No, Aunt; I will not touch it.”

When his Aunt had been some time gone, John thought, “Well, if I were to take a bit of cake, my Aunt would not miss it from such a large cake as this is: yet it seems to me not to be quite right to take it.”

But this boy (sad to say!) did take a piece, and he found it so good that he thought he would take a piece more. He did take some more; and he took piece by piece, and piece by piece, till he had made the cake quite small.

When he had done this, he knew that he had done wrong, and he felt sad. He went in his own room. He knew that the time must come when his Aunt would find it out.

He was sure that his Aunt would scold him if she knew; but he thought if he told her he had not done it she would think that he told the truth.

With these thoughts in his mind, he heard a knock at the door. He knew that it was his Aunt, so he made haste to come down stairs. He did not go in the room where the plum cake was, but he went in the next room. He took up a book, but he could not read, for his thoughts were too full of what he had done.

Soon his Aunt came in with the plum cake in her hand. “John,” said she, “look at this cake: when I went out it was quite large, and now look at it!”

John said, “I do not know of it: how should I?”

She then rang; the bell: “Ann,” said she as the maid came in the room, “do you know what has made the cake in this state? Call the cook, and ask her.”

The cook said the same as Ann had said, that “she did not know of it.”

When they were gone, his Aunt said to John, “It can be no one but you who have done this. I left you in the room with this cake, and told you not to touch it, and now, when I am come back, I find it in this state.”

John could not speak a word, for he felt that he had done wrong. His Aunt saw this, and told him to go to bed.

When he was in bed he thought what a bad boy he had been, and how wrong it was for him to have told his Aunt what was not true. He thought that when he got up he would go and tell his Aunt how wrong he had been, and that he would do so no more.

John did as he thought he would do. His Aunt told him that if he was a good boy for a month, no more should be said of it.

He was a good boy for a month; but for a long time past the month, when John saw plum cake, a flush of shame came on his face.