"But frequency of use dulling the sensation, I soon
began to perceive that this work was but a paltry shallow
expedient that went but a little way to relieve me, and
rather rais'd more flame than its dry and insignificant
titillation could rightly appease.
"Man alone, I almost instinctively knew, as well as by
what I had industriously picked up at weddings and christen-
ings, was possess'd of the only remedy that could reduce this
rebellious disorder; but watch'd and overlook'd as I was, how
to come at it was the point, and that, to all appearance, an
invincible one; not that I did not rack my brains and inven-
tion how at once to elude my mother's vigilance, and procure
myself the satisfaction of my impetuous curiosity and long-
ings for this mighty and untasted pleasure. At length, how-
ever, a singular chance did at once the work of a long course
of alertness. One day that we had dined at an acquaintance's
over the way, together with a gentlewoman-lodger that occu-
pied the first floor of our house, there started an indis-
pensable necessity for my mother's going down to Greenwich
to accompany her: the party was settled, when I do not know
what genius whispered me to plead a headache, which I cer-
tainly had not, against my being included in a jaunt that I
had not the least relish for. The pretext however passed,
and my mother, with much reluctance, prevailed with herself
to go without me; but took particular care to see me safe
home, where she consign'd me into the hands of an old
trusty maid-servant, who served in the shop, for we had not
a male creature in the house.
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