It was during the spring of the year 1789, that I was instructed to choose my curators. Two gentlemen were proposed to me by Mrs. Busby, the richest, and, of course, the most respectable in the village and its immediate neighbourhood. Had I followed the bent of my own inclinations, I would have made a far different election—I would have preferred Mr. Rhomboid, the schoolmaster, one of the most learned men I ever knew—in his own opinion. There was no fathoming the depths of his knowledge, and I was then beginning mathematics under his erudite tuition. Captain Gorget would also have been my other choice, for he possessed a surprising number of the queerest stories respecting exploits in camps and quarters, and other adventures of subaltern enterprise. I shall never forget how he used to place me on a chest, and talk to me as if I had been King Solomon, comforting me with apples. But I well remember, that although I had not a will in the election, I was yet greatly commended for my prudence, in soliciting the guardianship of the only two gentlemen, who, for many miles around, could in the slightest degree be useful to me in my orphan condition: all their other good qualities and fitness for the office were never mentioned, nor was I ever able to discover them.