p the windfalls; in watching the hens, and bringing
in their eggs when their cackling throats had announced their safe
accouchement; looking after the broods of young ducks and chickens, _et
hoc genus omne_; in short, doing the duty of what is usually termed the
odd man in the farm-yard. How far the parents would have been satisfied
with this arrangement, I leave my readers to guess; but to us who
preferred the manual to mental exertion, exercise to restraint, and any
description of cultivation to that of cultivating the mind, it suited
extremely well; and accordingly no place in the gift of government was
ever the object of such solicitude and intrigue, as was to us schoolboys
the situation of collector and trustee of the eggs and apples.

I had the good fortune to be early selected for this important post, and
the misfortune to lose it soon after, owing to the cunning and envy of
my schoolfellows and the suspicion of my employers. On my first coming
into office, I had formed the most sincere resolutions of honesty and
vigilance; but what are good resolutions when discouraged on the one
hand by the revilings of suspicion, and assailed on the other by the
cravings of appetite? My morning's collection was exacted from me to
the very last nut, and the greedy eyes of my mistress seemed to inquire
for more. Suspected when innocent, I became guilty out of revenge; was
detected and dismissed. A successor was appointed, to whom I
surrendered all my offices of trust, and having perfect leisure, I made
it my sole business to supplant him.

It was an axiom in mathematics with me at that time, though not found in
Euclid, that wherever I could enter my head, my whole body might follow.
As a practical illustration of this proposition, I applied my head to
the arched hole of the hen-house door, and by scraping away a little
dirt, contrived to gain admittance, and very speedily transferred all
the eggs to my own chest. When the new purveyor arrived, he found
nothing but "a beggarly account of empty boxes;" and his perambulations
in the orchard and garden, for the same reason, were equally
_fruitless_. The pilferings of the orchard and garden I confiscated as
droits; but when I had collected a sufficient number of eggs to furnish
a nest, I gave information of my pretended discovery to my mistress,
who, thinking she had not changed for the better, dismissed my
successor, and received me into favour again. I was, like many greate