re were two
wooden legs with keys hung up on the wall by string: a boy if he wanted
to ease himself looked to see if a log and key was hanging up, and
if there was, stood out in the centre of the room; by that the master
understood what he wanted. If he nodded, the boy took the key and went
to the bog-house (no water-closets then), and when he returned, he
hung up the log in its place. Those privies were close together, and
separate, there were but two of them.

"You wait till there are two logs hanging up, and directly I get one,
you get up and come after me." Soon we were both in one privy together.
"Let's frig," said he; we were only allowed to be away five minutes. Out
he pulled his prick, then out I pulled mine; he tried to pull my skin
back, and could only half do it, he frigged himself successfully, but
I could not. He had a very small prick compared with mine. How I envied
him the ease with which he covered and uncovered the red tip. I frigged
that boy one day, but finding my cock was becoming a talk among our set,
I shrunk from going to their frigging parties, which I have seen even
take place in a field, boys sitting at the edge of a ditch, whilst one
stood up to watch if anyone approached. When they were frigging in the
privy, a boy always stood in the open door on the watch, and his time
for frigging came afterwards.

With this set I began to look through the Bible, and study all the
carnal passages; no book ever gave us perhaps such prolonged, studious,
baudy amusement; we could not understand much, but guessed a good deal.

Before I had seen anyone frig, I had been permitted to read novels, not
a moment of my time when not at studies was I without one. My father
used to select them for me at first, but soon left me to myself, and
now he was dead, I devoured what books I liked, hunting for the love
passages, thinking of the beauty of the women, reading over and over
again, the description of their charms, and envying their love meetings.
I used to stop at print-shop windows and gaze with delight at the
portraits of pretty women, and bought some at six pence each, and stuck
them into a scrap-book. Although a big fellow for my age, I would sit
on the lap of any woman who would let me, and kiss her. My mother in her
innocence called me a great girl, but she neverthless forbid it. I was
passionately fond of dancing and annoyed when they indicated a girl of
my own age, or younger, to dance with.

These feeli