No position could lose any of its importance in his
hands. When he left St. Rollox a great blank was felt; he filled so
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.
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