If I named him, my father would say, 'W.

P., otherwise S.B., was born in the year so-and-so; now,' and he went to the cupboard, 'in the name of Politics, take this and meditate upon him.' The shops being all shut on Sunday, he certainly bought it, anticipating me unerringly, on the Saturday, and, as soon as the tart appeared, we both shouted.

I fancy I remember his repeating a couplet, 'Billy Pitt took a cake and a raspberry jam, When he heard they had taken Seringapatam.' At any rate, the rumour of his having done so, at periods of strong excitement, led to the inexplicable display of foresight on my father's part.
My meditations upon Pitt were, under this influence, favourable to the post of a Prime Minister, but it was merely appetite that induced me to choose him; I never could imagine a grandeur in his office, notwithstanding my father's eloquent talk of ruling a realm, shepherding a people, hurling British thunderbolts.

The day's discipline was, that its selected hero should reign the undisputed monarch of it, so when I was for Pitt, I had my tart as he used to have it, and no story, for he had none, and I think my idea of the ruler of a realm presented him to me as a sort of shadow about a pastrycook's shop.

But I surprised people by speaking of him.