CHAPTER SIX
IN the beginnings of the last chapter, I informed you exactly
when I was born;-but I did not inform you how. No; that
particular was reserved entirely for a chapter by itself;-
besides, Sir, as you and I are in a manner perfect strangers
to each other, it would not have been proper to have let you
into too many circumstances relating to myself all at once.
-You must have a little patience. I have undertaken, you
see, to write not only my life, but my opinions also; hoping
and expecting that your knowledge of my character, and of
what kind of a mortal I am, by the one, would give you a
better relish for the other: As you proceed further with me,
the slight acquaintance which is now beginning betwixt us,
will grow into familiarity; and that, unless one of us is in
fault, will terminate in friendship.-O diem praeclarum!
-then nothing which has touched me will be thought
trifling in its nature, or tedious in its telling. Therefore, my
dear friend and companion, if you should think me some-
what sparing of my narrative on my first setting out,-bear
with me,-and let me go on, and tell my story my own way:-
or, if I should seem now and then to trifle upon the road-
or should sometimes put on a fool's cap with a bell to it, for
a moment or two as we pass along,-don't fly off,-but rather
courteously give me credit for a little more wisdom than
appears upon my outside;-and as we jog on, either laugh
with me, or at me, or in short do any thing,-only keep
your temper.

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