ed
this so often, that it sunk deeply into my mind, and made me uneasy,
something was to happen to me, if I did something--I did not know
what--it was intended as a caution against frigging, and it had good
effect on me I am sure in various ways in the after time.

One day talking with Fred, I recollected what I had done to the
governess. I had kept it to myself all along for fear. "What a lie,"
said he. "I did really." "Oh! ain't you a liar," he reiterated, "I'll ask
Miss Granger." The same governess was with us then.

At this remark of his, an absolute terror came over me, the dread was
something so terrible, that the recollection of it is now painful. "Oh
don't, pray don't, Fred," I said, "oh if Papa should hear!" He kept on
saying he would. I was too young to see the improbability of his doing
anything of the sort. "If you do, I'll tell him what we did when the
pedler woman piddled." He did not care. "Now, it's a lie, isn't it, you
did not feel her cunt?" In fear, I confessed it was a lie. "I know it
was," said Fred. He had kept me in a state of terror about the affair
for days, till I told a lie, to get quit of the subject.

I was evidently always secret, even then, about anything amorous,
excepting with Fred (as will be seen) and have continued so all my
life. I rarely bragged, or told anyone of my doings; perhaps this little
affair with the governess, was a lesson to me, and confirmed me in a
habit natural to me from my infancy. I have kept to myself everything I
did with the opposite sex.

We now frequently examined our pricks, and Fred jeered me so about my
prepuce being tight, that I resolved that no other boy should see
it; and though I did not keep strictly to that intention, it left a
deep-seated mortification on me. I used to look at my prick with a
sense of shame, and pull the prepuce up and down, as far as I could
constantly, to loosen it, and would treat other boys' cocks in the same
way, if they would let me, without expecting me to make a return; but
the time was approaching when I was to learn much more.

One of my uncles, who lived in London, took a house in the country for
the summer near Hampton-Court Palace. Fred and I went to stay there
with them. There were several daughters and sons, the sons quite young.
People then came down from London in vans, carts, and carriages of all
sorts, to see the Palace and grounds (there was no railway), they were
principally of the small middle classes, and