I will not deny that he might have been influenced in this particular by the example and instruction of Mr.Hatchway, who delighted in superintending the first essays of his genius.

As the gout had taken up its residence in Mr.Trunnion's great toe, from whence it never removed, no not for a day, little Perry took great pleasure in treading by accident on this infirm member; and when his uncle, incensed by the pain, used to damn him for a hell-begotten brat, he would appease him in a twinkling, by returning the curse with equal emphasis, and asking what was the matter with old Hannibal Tough?
an appellation by which the lieutenant had taught him to distinguish this grim commander.
Neither was this the only experiment he tried upon the patience of the commodore, with whose nose he used to take indecent freedoms, even.
while he was fondled on his knee.

In one month he put him to the expense of two guineas in seal-skin; by picking his pocket of divers tobacco-pouches, all of which he in secret committed to the flames.

Nor did the caprice of his disposition abstain from the favourite beverage of Trunnion, who more than once swallowed a whole draught in which his brother's snuff-box had been emptied, before he perceived the disagreeable infusion; and one day, when the commodore had chastised him by a gentle tap with his cane, he fell flat on the floor as if he had been deprived of all sense and motion, to the terror and amazement of the striker; and after having filled the whole house with confusion and dismay, opened his eyes, and laughed heartily at the success of his own imposition.
It would be an endless and perhaps no very agreeable task, to enumerate all the unlucky pranks he played upon his uncle and others, before he attained the fourth year of his age; about which time he was sent, with an attendant, to a day-school in the neighbourhood, that (to use his good mother's own expression) he might be out of harm's way.

Here, however, he made little progress, except in mischief, which he practised with impunity, because the school-mistress would run no risk of disobliging a lady of fortune, by exercising unnecessary severities upon her only child.