the Strand and the river; and Telford was able to get a place at
once on the job as a hewer of the finer architectural details, for
which both his taste and experience well fitted him. He spent some
two years in London at this humble post as a stone-cutter; but
already he began to aspire to something better. He earned first-
class mason's wages now, and saved whatever he did not need for
daily expenses. In this respect, the improvidence of his English
fellow-workmen struck the cautious young Scotchman very greatly.
They lived, he said, from week to week entirely; any time beyond a
week seemed unfortunately to lie altogether outside the range of
their limited comprehension.

At the end of two years in London, Telford's skill and study began
to bear good fruit. His next engagement was one which raised him
for the first time in his life above the rank of a mere journeyman
mason. The honest workman had attracted the attention of competent
judges. He obtained employment as foreman of works of some
important buildings in Portsmouth Dockyard. A proud man indeed was
Thomas Telford at this change of fortune, and very proudly he wrote
to his old friends in Eskdale, with almost boyish delight, about
the trust reposed in him by the commissioners and officers, and the
pains he was taking with the task entrusted to him. For he was
above all things a good workman, and like all good workmen he felt
a pride and an interest in all the jobs he took in hand. His sense
of responsibility and his sensitiveness, indeed, were almost too
great at times for his own personal comfort. Things WILL go wrong
now and then, even with the greatest care; well-planned undertakings
will not always pay, and the best engineering does not necessarily
succeed in earning a dividend; but whenever such mishaps occurred to
his employers, Telford felt the disappointment much too keenly, as