large a space. He has lately gone to his rest full of years and honors.

I fear he never liked me, nor had any great opinion of my abilities. This
was not to be wondered at, for I am sure I did not display any excessive
zeal for the work on which I was then employed, and which I found
monotonous and uninteresting.

He confided to his chief clerk, who was my friend, that one day he had
seen me, in business hours, in the city, smoking a cigarette and looking
at the girls, and was sure I would never do much good. He had very
strict business notions. I confessed to the cigarette, but not to the
graver charge. It was a wholesome tonic, however, and pulled me up. I
wanted to get on in life; ambition was stirring within me; and I formed
some good resolutions which, as time went on, I kept more or less
faithfully.

At St. Rollox one's daily lunch was a matter of some difficulty. It was
a district of factories, and the only restaurants were the Great Western
Cooking Depots, where one could get a steak and bread and cheese for
fivepence, but the rooms and tables and accessories were, to say the
least, unappetising. Hunger had to be satisfied, however, and I had to
swallow my pride and my five-pennyworth. I varied this occasionally by
bringing with me my own sandwiches and eating them seated on a tombstone
in Sighthill cemetery, which was less than a quarter of a mile distant
from the stores department.

My work, as I have said, was monotonous enough: writing letters from
dictation, an occupation which gave but little exercise to one's
faculties. I obtained some variation by occasionally taking a turn
through the various stores and getting into touch with the practical men