I left poor old Nanny with her face buried in her apron; and it was in a very melancholy mood that I returned home.  I could not help thinking of the picture in the spelling-book, where the young man at the gallows is biting off the ear of his mother, who, by her indulgence, had brought him to that disgrace.

CHAPTER THIRTY

     Strong symptoms of Mutiny, which is fortunately Quelled by granting
     a Supply.

It was a beautiful sunshiny warm morning when I arose, and, as Bramble intended that we should leave Greenwich the next day, I thought I might as well call at the house of Dr. Tadpole, and try if I could see him before I went.  When I arrived there he was not at home, but my namesake Tom was, as usual, in the shop.  Tom was two or three years older than me, being between seventeen and eighteen, and he had now grown a great tall fellow.  We always were very good friends, when we occasionally met, and he generally appeared to be as good tempered and grinning as ever; but when I now entered the shop I found him very grave and dejected, so much so that I could not help asking him what was the matter.

“Matter enough, I think,” said Tom, who was pounding something in the mortar.  “I’ll not stay here, that’s flat.  I’ll break my indentures, as sure as my name’s Tom Cob, and I’ll set up an opposition, and I’ll join the Friends of the People Society, and the Anti-Bible Society, and every other opposition Anti in the country.”

“Why, what has happened, Tom?”

“I’ll make speeches against Church and against State, and against the Aristocracy, and Habeas Corpus, and against Physic, and against Standing Armies, and Magna Charta, and every other rascally tyranny and oppression to which we are subjected, that I will!” Here Tom gave such a thump with the pestle that I thought he would have split the mortar.

“But what is it, Tom?” inquired I, as I sat down.  “What has the doctor done?”

“Why, I’ll tell you, the liquorice is all gone, and he won’t order any more.”

“Well, that is because you have eaten it all.”

“No, I haven’t; I haven’t eaten a bit for these five weeks:  it’s all been used in pharmacopey, honestly used, and he can’t deny it.”

“Who used it?”

“Why, I did:  he said he wouldn’t stand my eating liquorice, and I told him that I shouldn’t eat any more.  No more I have, but I ain’t well, and I prescribes for myself.  Haven’t I a right to do that?  Mayn’t I physic myself?  I am a doctor as well as he is.  Who makes up all the medicine, I should like to know? who ties up the bottles and writes directions?  Well, my insides are out of order, and I prescribes for myself—­black draughts ‘omnes duas horas sumendum’; and now he says that, as the ingredients are all gone, I shan’t take any more.”

“And pray what were the ingredients, Tom?”

“Why, laxative and alterative, as suits my complaint—­Extract. liquor.—­aqua pura—­haustus.”