14th. Run down in a wherry by a coal-brig, off Greenwich, but providentially picked up by a steamer, that burst her boiler directly afterwards. Saved to be scalded!--But misfortunes with me never came single, from my very childhood. I remember when my little brothers and sisters tumbled down stairs, they always hitched halfway at the angle. _My_ luck invariably turned the corner. It could not bear to bate me a single bump.
17th. Had my eye picked out by a pavior who was _axing_ his way, he didn’t care where. Sent home in a hackney chariot that upset. Paid Jarvis a sovereign for a shilling. My luck all over!
1st of May. My flue on fire. Not a sweep to be had for love or money!--Lucky enough _for me_--the parish engine soon arrived, with all the charity school. Boys are fond of playing--and indulged their propensity by playing into my best drawing-room. Every friend I had dropped in to dinner. Nothing but Lacedemonian black broth. Others have pot-luck, but I have not even pint-luck--at least of the right sort.
8th. Found, on getting up, that the kitchen garden had been stripped by thieves, but had the luck at night to catch some one in the garden, by walking into my own trap. Afraid to call out, for fear of being shot at by the gardener, who would have hit me to a dead certainty--for such is my luck!
10th. Agricultural distress is a treat to mine. My old friend Bill--I must henceforth call him Corn-bill--has, this morning, laid his unfeeling wooden leg on my tenderest toe, like a thresher. In spite of Dibdin, I don’t believe that oak has any heart; or it would not be such a walking tread-mill!
12th. Two pieces of “my usual.” First knocked down by a mad bull. Secondly, picked up by a pick-pocket. Anybody but me would have found one honest humane man out of a whole crowd; but I am born to suffer, whether done by accident or done by design. Luckily for me and the pick-pocket, I was able to identify him, bound over to prosecute, and had the satisfaction of exporting him to Botany Bay. I suppose I performed well in a court of justice, for the next day--“_Encore un coup_!”--I had a summons to serve with a Middlesex jury, at the Old Bailey, for a fortnight.
14th. My number in the lottery has come up a capital prize. Luck at last--if I had not lost the ticket.