"Ay, but I ha’ knowed a wuss. Did ever I tell ’ee of Jacob Spinney the potticary? I was a growen lad, and feyther o’ mine wanted to put me to a trade. So he bound me prentice to Jacob Spinney, that kept a potticary’s shop by Bargate at S’thampton. Zooks! Jacob was a deceiver, like his namesake in the Book. A’ promised feyther he’d gi’ me good vittles and plenty on ’em, bein’ a growen lad; but sakes, I never got no meat save at third boilen; ’twas like eatin’ leather. A’ said I was growen too fast, a’ did, and he’d keep me down. Pudden—I never put my lips to pudden for two year, not once. I took down shutters at zix i’ the mornen, and put ’em up at eight o’ nights; betwixt and between I was pounden away at drugs, and carryen parcels, and scrubben floors and nussen mistress’ babby: ay, what med ’ee think o’ that? If so happened I broke a bottle, or overslept five minutes—oons! there was master a-strappen me to a hook in the wall he kept o’ purpose, and layen a birch over my shoulders and keepen me on bread and water or turmuts not fit for a ox. I dwindled crossways to a shadder, Master Harry, I did so, and every week th’ old villain made me write a letter to feyther, sayen as how I was fat and flourishen like a green bay tree. Do what a’ would, however, I growed and growed, at fourteen a long slip of a feller all arms and legs. Two mortal year I put up wi’ un; then I got tired. One day, mistress was out, and I was rollen pills in the little back shop, when master come in. He was in a terrible passion, goodness alone knows what about. He pitched into me for wasten his drugs and eatin’ up all his profits, and hit me with his cane, and sent me spinnen agen the table, and knocked off his best chiney mortar, and there ’twas on the floor, smashed to atomies. Bein’ his own doen, it made his temper wuss, it did, and he caught me by the hair and said he’d skin me. I’ fecks, I were always a man o’ peace, even as a boy, but I’d had long sufferen enough, and now my peaceful blood was up. I wriggled myself free—and there he was, flat on the floor, and me a-sitten on him. He hollered and cussed, for all he was a Puritan; and, haven respect unto my neighbours, I stuffed a handkercher into his mouth. There I sits, a-thinken what to do wi’ un. ’Twas in for a penny in for a pound wi’ me then; I’d have to run, ’dentures or no ’dentures, and it seemed fair to have my pen’orth afore I went. There was that hook I knowed so well, and that strap hangen still and loose: ’I’ll gi’ un a taste o’ the birch he be so uncommon fond on,’ thinks I. So I hoists un up, and soon has un strapped ready; but looken at un I thinks to myself: ’You be a poor wamblen mortal arter all, skinny for all the pudden you eat. I’ll ha’ mercy on your poor weak flesh.’ Besides, I had another notion. So I casts un loose and sits un on a chair and straps un to chair-back, hands to sides.