even. while he was fondled on his knee. In one month he put him to
the expense of two guineas in seal-skin; by picking his pocket of
divers tobacco-pouches, all of which he in secret committed to the
flames. Nor did the caprice of his disposition abstain from the
favourite beverage of Trunnion, who more than once swallowed a whole
draught in which his brother's snuff-box had been emptied, before
he perceived the disagreeable infusion; and one day, when the
commodore had chastised him by a gentle tap with his cane, he fell
flat on the floor as if he had been deprived of all sense and motion,
to the terror and amazement of the striker; and after having filled
the whole house with confusion and dismay, opened his eyes, and
laughed heartily at the success of his own imposition.

It would be an endless and perhaps no very agreeable task, to enumerate
all the unlucky pranks he played upon his uncle and others, before
he attained the fourth year of his age; about which time he was
sent, with an attendant, to a day-school in the neighbourhood, that
(to use his good mother's own expression) he might be out of harm's
way. Here, however, he made little progress, except in mischief,
which he practised with impunity, because the school-mistress
would run no risk of disobliging a lady of fortune, by exercising
unnecessary severities upon her only child. Nevertheless, Mrs. Pickle
was not so blindly partial as to be pleased with such unseasonable
indulgence. Perry was taken out of the hands of this courteous
teacher, and committed to the instruction of a pedagogue, who was
ordered to administer such correction as the boy should in his
opinion deserve. This authority he did not neglect to use, his pupil
was regularly flogged twice a day; and after having been subjected
to this course of discipline for the space of eighteen months,
declared the most obstinate, dull, and untoward genius that ever