turday whether I should name
William Pitt on the Sunday; for, on those occasions, 'Slender Billy,' as
I hope I am not irreverent in calling him, made up for the dulness of his
high career with a raspberry-jam tart, for which, my father told me
solemnly, the illustrious Minister had in his day a passion. If I named
him, my father would say, 'W. P., otherwise S. B., was born in the year
so-and-so; now,' and he went to the cupboard, 'in the name of Politics,
take this and meditate upon him.' The shops being all shut on Sunday, he
certainly bought it, anticipating me unerringly, on the Saturday, and, as
soon as the tart appeared, we both shouted. I fancy I remember his
repeating a couplet,

'Billy Pitt took a cake and a raspberry jam,
When he heard they had taken Seringapatam.'

At any rate, the rumour of his having done so, at periods of strong
excitement, led to the inexplicable display of foresight on my father's
part.

My meditations upon Pitt were, under this influence, favourable to the
post of a Prime Minister, but it was merely appetite that induced me to
choose him; I never could imagine a grandeur in his office,
notwithstanding my father's eloquent talk of ruling a realm, shepherding
a people, hurling British thunderbolts. The day's discipline was, that
its selected hero should reign the undisputed monarch of it, so when I
was for Pitt, I had my tart as he used to have it, and no story, for he
had none, and I think my idea of the ruler of a realm presented him to me
as a sort of shadow about a pastrycook's shop. But I surprised people by
speaking of him. I made remarks to our landlady which caused her to throw
up her hands and exclaim that I was astonishing. She would always add a
mysterious word or two in the hearing of my nursemaid or any friend of
hers who looked into my room to see me. After my father had got me
forward with instructions on the piano, and exercises in early English
history and the book of the Peerage, I became the wonder of the house. I
was put up on a stool to play 'In my Cottage near a Wood,' or 'Cherry
Ripe,' and then, to show the range of my accomplishments, I was asked,
'And who married the Dowager Duchess of Dewlap?' and I answered, 'John
Gregg Wetherall, Esquire, and disgraced the family.' Then they asked me
how I accounted for her behaviour.

'It was because the Duke married a dairymaid,' I replied, always tossing
up my chin at that. My father had concocted the quest