a secret; recollect, a secret deep as the
grave; promise me, as you hope for heaven!"

"I do, mother, as I hope for heaven."

"Now, Jack, leave me. Good-by. You will come and see me when you return,
and never bring this subject up again. Bless you, my child! bless you!"

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."