From leg I'd rather run away; Vain flight of fancy is a wing; A merry thought, I sadly say, To me is a forbidden thing. But cut I will, and that full soon, For some fair land where freedom lingers, Where I can feed me with a spoon, Or, like a Frenchman, use my fingers. 25. Equi-noctial Gales now about. [Illustration] [Illustration] Pray, sir, did you mean that blow in jest? No, indeed, sir, I never was more in earnest. Oh! I'm very glad of it, for I never put up with a joke. MARCH.—SHOWERY. When my mamma heard of the treatment of her darling she was for bringing an action against the schoolmaster, or else for tearing his eyes out (when, dear soul! she would not have torn the eyes out of a flea, had it been her own injury), and, at the very least, for having me removed from the school where I had been so shamefully treated. But papa was stern for once, and vowed that I had been served quite right, declared that I should not be removed from the school; and sent old Swishtail a brace of pheasants for what he called his kindness to me. Of these the old gentleman invited me to partake, and made a very queer speech at dinner, as he was cutting them up, about the excellence of my parents, and his own determination to be _kinder still_ to me, if ever I ventured on such practices again; so I was obliged to give up my old trade of lending, for the doctor declared that any boy who borrowed should be flogged, and any one who _paid_ should be flogged twice as much. There was no standing against such a prohibition as this, and my little commerce was ruined. I was not very high in the school: not having been able to get further than that dreadful _Propria quæ maribus_ in the Latin grammar, of which, though I have it by heart even now, I never could understand a syllable— but, on account of my size, my age, and the prayers of my mother, was allowed to have the privilege of the bigger boys, and on holidays to walk about in the town; great dandies we were, too, when we thus went out. I recollect my costume very well: a thunder-and-lightning coat, a white waistcoat, embroidered neatly at the pockets, a lace frill, a pair of knee-breeches, and elegant white cotton or silk stockings. This did very well, but still I was dissatisfied, I wanted _a pair of boots_. Three boys in the school had boots—I was mad to have them too. There was a German bootmaker who had just set up in _our_ town in those days, who afterwards made his fortune in London; I determined to have the boots from him, and did not despair, before the end of a year or two, either to leave the school, when I should not mind his dunning me, or to screw the money from mamma, and so pay him. So I called upon this man, Stiffelkind was his name, and he took my measure for a pair.