a stick, nay, a cricket-bat, a poker, upon his chin, and I could not;
you laugh, and so can I now, but it was no subject of laughter to me
then. This circumstance, trifling as it may appear to you, poisoned
my enjoyment. The boy saw my envy, for I could not conceal it; and as
all fools are malicious, and most fools ostentatious, he took a
particular pride and pleasure in displaying his dexterity and showing
off my discontent. You can form no idea of the extent to which this
petty insolence vexed and disquieted me. Even in my sleep, the clumsy
and grinning features of this tormenting imp haunted me like a
spectre: my visions were nothing but chins and cricket-bats; walking-
sticks, sustaining themselves upon human excrescences, and pokers
dancing a hornpipe upon the tip of a nose. I assure you that I have
spent hours in secret seclusion, practising to rival my hated comrade,
and my face--see how one vanity quarrels with another--was little
better than a mass of bruises and discolorations.

I actually became so uncomfortable as to write home, and request to
leave the school. I was then about sixteen, and my indulgent father,
in granting my desire, told me that I was too old and too advanced in
my learning to go to any other academic establishment than the
University. The day before I left the school, I gave, as was usually
the custom, a breakfast to all my friends; the circumstance of my
tormentor's sharing my room obliged me to invite him among the rest.
However, I was in high spirits, and being a universal favourite with
my schoolfellows, I succeeded in what was always to me an object of
social ambition, and set the table in a roar; yet, when our festival
was nearly expired, and I began to allude more particularly to my
approaching departure, my vanity was far more gratified, for my
feelings were far more touched, by observing the regret and receiving
the good wishes of all my companions. I still recall that hour as one