A YOUNG gentleman, a clerk in the Treasury, used every morning, as he
came from his lady mother's to the office, to pass by the canal in the
Green Park, and feed the ducks then kept there, with bread and corn,
which he carried in his pocket for the purpose. One day, having called
his grateful friends, the _ducky, ducky, duckies_, he found
unfortunately that he had forgotten them. "Poor duckies!" he cried, "I
am sorry I have not brought your allowance, _but here is sixpence for
you to buy some_," and threw in a sixpence, which one of them caught and
gobbled up. At the office he very wisely told the story to the other
gentlemen there, with whom he was to dine next day. One of the party
putting the landlord up to the story, desired him to have ducks at the
table, and put a sixpence in the body of one of them, which was taken
care to be placed before our hero. On cutting it up, and discovering the
sixpence in its belly, he ordered the waiter to send up his master, whom
he loaded with the epithets of rascal and scoundrel, swearing that he
would have him prosecuted for robbing the king of his ducks; "For," said
he, "gentlemen, I assure you, on my honor, that yesterday morning, _I
gave this sixpence to one of the ducks in the Green Park_."'