ts of the coach,
which was to convey me and six more children of my own growth that were
going to be entered along with me at the same seminary, with a
prodigious quantity of gingerbread, which I remember my father said was
more than was needed: and so, indeed, it was; for, if I had been to eat
it all myself, it would have got stale and mouldly before it had been
half spent. The consideration whereof set me upon my contrivances how I
might secure to myself as much of the gingerbread as would keep good for
the next two or three days, and yet none of the rest in a manner be
wasted. I had a little pair of pocket-compasses, which I usually carried
about me for the purpose of making draughts and measurements, at which I
was always very ingenious, of the various engines and mechanical
inventions in which such a town as Birmingham abounded. By the means of
these, and a small penknife which my father had given me, I cut out the
one half of the cake, calculating that the remainder would reasonably
serve my turn; and subdividing it into many little slices, which were
curious to see for the neatness and niceness of their proportion, I sold
it out in so many pennyworths to my young companions as served us all
the way to Warwick, which is a distance of some twenty miles from this,
town: and very merry, I assure you, we made ourselves with it, feasting
all the way. By this honest stratagem, I put double the prime cost of
the gingerbread into my purse, and secured as much as I thought would
keep good and moist for my next two or three days' eating. When I told
this to my parents, on their first visit to me at Warwick, my father
(good man) patted me on the cheek, and stroked my head, and seemed as if
he could never make enough of me; but my mother unaccountably burst into
tears, and said "it was a very niggardly action," or some such
expression, and that "she would rather it would please God to take
me"--meaning, God help me, that I should die--"than that she should live
to see me grow up a _mean man_": which shows the difference of parent
from parent, and how some mothers are more harsh and intolerant to their
children than some fathers,--when we might expect quite the contrary. My
father, however, loaded me with presents from that time, which made me
the envy of my school-fellows. As I felt this growing disposition in
them, I naturally sought to avert it by all the means in my power; and
from that time I used to eat my little packages