This boy, whose name was M'Gill, was, at all his leisure hours,
engaged in drawing profane pictures of beasts, men, women,
houses, and trees, and, in short, of all things that his eye
encountered. These profane things the master often smiled at, and
admired; therefore I began privately to try my hand likewise. I
had scarcely tried above once to draw the figure of a man, ere I
conceived that I had hit the very features of Mr. Wilson. They
were so particular that they could not be easily mistaken, and I
was so tickled and pleased with the droll likeness that I had
drawn that I laughed immoderately at it. I tried no other figure
but this; and I tried it in every situation in which a man and a
schoolmaster could be placed. I often wrought for hours together
at this likeness, nor was it long before I made myself so much
master of the outline that I could have drawn it in any situation
whatever, almost off hand. I then took M'Gill's account book of
algebra home with me, and at my leisure put down a number
of gross caricatures of Mr. Wilson here and there, several of them
in situations notoriously ludicrous. I waited the discovery of this
treasure with great impatience; but the book, chancing to be one
that M'Gill was not using, I saw it might be long enough before
I enjoyed the consummation of my grand scheme: therefore,
with all the ingenuity I was master of, I brought it before our
dominie's eye.
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