BOOK-KEEPING AND HUSTLING 



very well in my father's business and that I had better 

 get a move on me myself and look for a job. My 

 father put me off by saying he hoped that things 

 would be all right, and that he " must really think of 

 what I should be," but I could see that there was a 

 good deal of worry, so I took my own views about it. 

 I had been hanging about in my brother's office — he 

 was in the wine trade until he went to Australia when 

 I was about seventeen ; he lived and died there. He 

 used to let me taste the wine in his office and I devel- 

 oped rather a discriminating palate, and it took very 

 little time to master the mysteries of a day-book and 

 ledger. I had tried my hand at literature, and my 

 stories must have been funny. I used to send them 

 to a cousin I was very much in love with and who was 

 about twelve years older than myself. We carried 

 locks of hair in those days. She was considerate, and 

 used to submit to my calf affection. Bless her, she used 

 to write too, and say how much she had enjoyed the 

 last story I had written, but, from her own experience, 

 the hero usually married someone younger than him- 

 self, not a woman twelve years older. However, she 

 praised the literary style, and I believed her, until it 

 was discovered that she had never opened the envelope 

 containing one of them. 



I answered one or two advertisements for a job, but 

 was turned down from one in the Hop Exchange for 

 the reason that I was " too old ! " and yet I was barely 

 sixteen ; but six feet and fifteen stone suggested 

 twenty-one. After that disappointment, coming back 

 over London Bridge I paid a penny at a newspaper 

 shop on the City side of the bridge to look at the 

 Times. I read that an old-established publisher 

 wanted someone — which seemed to mean me. I 

 .straight away went to interview Mr William Tegg of 

 B 17 



