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.
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