A messmate’s pilfering was ceaseless and cheerfully confessed

Evidence

I told him to fill up the four-gallon kettle, and an hour afterwards found it red-hot on the stove. Nothing can be kept from him unless it is hidden in my room. He has eaten two pounds of dried cherries from the shelf, half of my second four-pound spiced loaf before it was cold, licked up my custard sauce in the night, and privately devoured the pudding which was to be for supper. — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 243

Categorization

• CANDY: The padded inventory of stolen food — cherries, half a loaf, custard sauce, a midnight pudding — is comic and instantly retellable.
• FICTION: A vivid character beat: the shameless, endlessly hungry companion who devours the communal stores and confesses with a shrug.