Pretty good one! Very moralistic, but with some space for real character development, and for some fun too. The kid is fantasizing at the beginning—his name is Ambrose, but he’s going to be Butch for a while. He then has a very different experience when his scoundrelly fantasy subsequently, sort of, comes true.
Dirty Bill the bulldog is a good antagonist for a while, more Long John Silver (bad, but…) than what we usually get in this series. He sings a great little song—“I never took a bath and I never will”—in which our hero joins. Pinocchio, etc. He’s making a good point here! Ambrose/Butch’s bragging account of the hold up he says he committed is really nice (cf. the kid in Lewis Milestone’s version of Steinbeck’s The Red Pony). At this point the previously interesting antagonist jettisons all that, turning plain contrary, and forcing a repentant Ambrose to run back to his mother, to whom he submits most willingly. Cop-out? Kow-towing? Well, as long as the lectures are good, and contain recognizable realities, and are alternated with pies in the face, then we’ll be alright.