CHAPTER III 



START AT EARNING MONEY 



Myself as a Boy — Scottish Education — Getting the First Job myself — 

 Publishing Business — The Old Argyle and Pavilion 



I don't know exactly how it was, but my father 

 became a Presbyterian before I was born. He was 

 a Manchester man, son of one of the best-known 

 sohcitors in that city, Thomas Luckman, a wonderful 

 pleader and a man calculated to get any man off 

 hanging — such was his reputation. From driving a 

 very flashy carriage and pair for some years and living 

 high, the responsibilities of a family, or something, 

 caused less prosperous days, and his sons had to look 

 after themselves. One of them, my father, came to 

 London in consequence, and married my mother. 

 They were both exactly the same age to the day. 

 From having no religious views to speak of, except 

 that he was nominally a churchman, living in a 

 London suburb engendered some sort of Noncon- 

 formist spirit, and my mother, from being a staunch 

 churchwoman and riding to hounds regularly when 

 Sir Thomas Assheton Smith hunted the Tidworth 

 pack, turned round in her views. At all events, the 

 two of them embraced the " U.P. Kirk," and my 

 father collected nearly all the money to build that 

 north London church known as Park Church, Highbury. 

 I can remember those fifty-minute sermons of the Rev. 

 Dr Edmond ; he was always known as a great theo- 

 logian. At the evening service, where the sermon was 

 equally long, I was made to sit by my father and kick 



15 



