AT MANCHESTER 59 



feared would be beyond what he could afford, and 

 he only projected it * to have a castle in the air.' 

 And there were actual pinches. Fresh from a 

 warmer sun, he was obliged to go without a great- 

 coat, and learned on railway journeys to supply 

 the place of one with wrappings of old newspaper. 



From half-past eight till six, he must ' file and Fieeming 



at Fair- 

 chip vigorously in a moleskin suit and infernally bairn's. 



dirty.' The work was not new to him, for he had 

 already passed some time in a Genoese shop ; and 

 to Fieeming no work was without interest. What- 

 ever a man can do or know, he longed to know and 

 do also. * I never learned anything,' he wrote, 

 ' not even standing on my head, but I found a use 

 for it.' In the spare hours of his first telegraph 

 voyage, to give an instance of his greed of know- 

 ledge, he meant ' to learn the whole art of naviga- 

 tion, every rope in the ship and how to handle her 

 on any occasion ' ; and once when he was shown 

 a young lady's holiday collection of seaweeds, he 

 must cry out, * It showed me my eyes had been 

 idle.' Nor was his the case of the mere literary 

 smatterer, content if he but learn the names of 

 things. In him, to do and to do well, was even a 

 dearer ambition than to know. Anything done 

 well, any craft, despatch, or finish, delighted and 

 inspired him. I remember him with a twopenny 

 Japanese box of three drawers, so exactly fitted 

 that, when one was driven home, the others started 



