CHAPTER II 



CAUSES OF SUCCESS 



From the lukewarm to the earnest, from sloth to 

 zeal, from failure to success. Some years ago, one 

 cold, slate - coloured morning towards the end of 

 March ('hunch-weather,' as I have heard it termed 

 in Lincolnshire, because, I suppose, a sense of starva- 

 tion has a tendency to set one's back up), I received 

 a note from a Nottingham mechanic, inviting me to 

 assist in a judicial capacity at an exhibition of Roses, 

 which was to be given by working-men, and held on 

 Easter Monday. Not having at the time a Rose in 

 my possession, although, to my shame be it spoken, 

 I had ample room and appliances, and knowing, 

 moreover, that all the conservatories of the neigh- 

 bourhood were in a like destitute and disgraceful 

 condition, it never occurred to me that the tiny glass 

 houses, which I had seen so often on the hills near 

 Nottingham, could be more honourably utilised or 

 worthily occupied, and I threw down the letter on 

 my first impulse as a hoax, and a very poor one. 



