the town, and he had therefore no organisation to help him. Not
being master of any craft, he was in a pitiable plight, and was
slowly sinking, when he applied to the solicitor of the political
party for which he had always voted to assist him. The solicitor
applied to the member, and the member, much regretting the difficulty
of obtaining places for grown-up men, and explaining the pressure
upon the Treasury, wrote to say that the only post at his disposal
was that of labourer. He would have liked to offer a messengership,
but the Treasury had hundreds of applications from great people who
wished to dispose of favourite footmen whose services they no longer
required. Our friend Taylor had by this time been brought very low,
or he would have held out for something better, but there was nothing
to be done. He was starving, and he therefore accepted; came to
London; got a room, one room only, near Clare Market, and began his
new duties. He was able to pick up a shilling or two more weekly by
going on errands for the clerks during his slack time in the day, so
that altogether on the average he made up about eighteen shillings.
Wandering about the Clare Market region on Sunday he found us out,
came in, and remained constant. Naturally, as we had so few
adherents, we gradually knew these few very intimately, and Taylor
would often spend a holiday or part of the Sunday with us. He was
not eminent for anything in particular, and an educated man,
selecting as his friends those only who stand for something, would
not have taken the slightest notice of him. He had read nothing
particular, and thought nothing particular--he was indeed one of the
masses--but in this respect different, that he had not the tendency
to association, aggregation, or clanship which belong to the masses
generally. He was different, of course, in all his ways from his
neighbours born and bred to Clare Market and its alleys. Although
commonplace, he had demands made upon him for an endurance by no