I have to speak three or four times before you move to do what I say.

Now, I am going to have a prison.
The prison is to be that dark closet, and I am going to shut you up in it for half an hour every time you disobey.

Now, remember! The very next time!" _Empty Threatening_.
Mothers who govern by threatening seldom do any thing but threaten.
Accordingly, the first time the children disobey her, after such an announcement, she says nothing, if the case happens to be one in which the disobedience occasions her no particular trouble.

The next time, when the transgression is a little more serious, she thinks, very rightly perhaps, that to be shut up half an hour in a dark closet would be a disproportionate punishment.

Then, when at length some very willful and grave act of insubordination occurs, she happens to be in particularly good-humor, for some reason, and has not the heart to shut "the poor thing" in the closet; or, perhaps, there is company present, and she does not wish to make a scene.