Nor were these symptoms unfaithful. I took to my pins, on my own account, before I was ten months old; but, unfortunately, my first walk was into a draw-well, where I would infallibly have been drowned, if it had not been for a large Newfoundland dog which my father kept, and which was close by me at the time of the accident. The faithful creature leapt in after me, and kept me afloat, until my father came and extricated me. After this, I was never trusted a moment out of sight; and thus, instead of this precocious developement of my physical powers proving a blessing to me, it proved a curse; for it deprived me of all liberty. As I grew up, however, this restraint became less rigorous, and I was permitted to ramble in the garden; and one of my first feats, after obtaining this freedom, was, to climb a high wall, to come at an uncommonly fine apple that had long tempted me with its rosy cheeks, and I had just succeeded in getting near enough to the prize to grasp it, when, in making this effort, down I came; and this leg, gentlemen (said the little man, holding out his deformed limb), was the consequence. I fell and broke my leg, just as I was about to grasp the apple. Fatal type of all my subsequent misfortunes!
I have now, gentlemen (went on the little man), to account for the other deformity that disfigures me, viz.,--my hump-back. This befell me in the following manner. Playing one day with a number of boys, of about my own age, which was then six or seven, a big fellow, of double the size of any of us, came in amongst us, and began to plunder us of our playthings; and he was in the very act of robbing me of a hoop, when another lad, still stronger and bigger, who saw the attempted robbery, generously ran to my assistance, and aimed a tremendous blow with a stick at my assailant. The blow, however, missed him at whom it was aimed, and took me exactly on the small of the back, which it broke in two as if it had been a pipe shank; and the consequence was, as you see, gentlemen (said the little man in the bright yellow waistcoat, edging round, at the same time, to indicate his hump).
Well, then, gentlemen (he went on), up to my ninth year, this was all the good fortune that my caul brought me--that is, being first half-drowned, then breaking my leg, and lastly my back. To compensate, however, in some measure, for these mischances, I turned out an excellent scholar; and, especially, became a very expert Latinist--a circumstance which my father, who had a great veneration for the language, thought sufficient alone to make my fortune; and it certainly procured me--that is, very nearly procured me--in the meantime, some of the chief honours of the school. I say very nearly--for I did not actually obtain them; but it was only by the merest accident in the world that I did not. The misapprehension of a single word deprived me of a prize which was about to be awarded to me, and gave it to one of my competitors. This was reckoned a very hard case; but there was no help for it.