dear, he could not help that
and therefore it was not right to laugh at him.

Everybody, however, laughed to see him eat his pap, for he would not
be fed with the patent silver pap-spoon which his father bought him,
but used to lay himself flat on his back, and seize the pap-boat with
both hands, and never let go of it till its contents were fairly in
his dear little stomach.

So Limby grew bigger and bigger every day, till at last he could
scarcely draw his breath, and was very ill; so his mother sent for
three apothecaries and two physicians, who looked at him, and told his
mother there were no hopes: the poor child was dying of overfeeding.
The physicians, however, prescribed for him--a dose of castor-oil.

His mother attempted to give him the castor-oil, but Limby, although
he liked tops and bottoms, and cordial, and pap, and sweetbread, and
oysters, and other things nicely dished up, had no fancy for
castor-oil, and struggled and kicked and fought every time his nurse
or mother attempted to give it him.

"Limby, my darling boy," said his mother, "my sweet cherub, my only
dearest, do take its oily-poily, there's a ducky-deary, and it shall
ride in a coachy-poachy."

"Oh, the dear baby!" said the nurse; "take it for nursey. It will take
it for nursey, that it will."

The nurse had got the oil in a silver medicine-spoon, so contrived
that, if you could get it into the child's mouth, the medicine must go
down. Limby, however, took care that no spoon should go into his
mouth, and when the nurse tried the experiment for the nineteenth
time, gave a plunge and a kick, and sent the spoon up to the ceiling,
knocked off the nurse's spectacles, upset the table on which all the
bottles and glasses were, and came down whack on the floor.

His mother picked him up, clasped him to her breast, and almost
smothered him with kisses.

"Oh, my dear boy!" said she; "it shan't take the nasty oil! it won't
take it, the darling! Naughty nurse to hurt baby! It shall not take
nasty physic!"

And then she kissed him again.

Poor Limby, although only two years old, knew what he was at--he was
trying to be the master of his mother. He felt he had gained his
point, and gave another kick and a squall, at the same time planting a
blow on his mother's eye.

"Dear little creature!" said she; "he is in a state of high
convulsions and fever. He will never recover!"

But Limby did recover, and in a few days was running about the house,