I.
Though only a miserable little waif, born in sorrow and nurtured in poverty, George Ermen had resolved to be a great man.
He earned six shillings a week at sorting rags and paper, adding frequently to this a smaller sum gained by cleaning pots at a public-house. It was a miserable pittance. He and his mother could hardly be said to live upon it, they only existed; and they found this still more difficult when George's father, a lazy, ne'er-do-well, came to visit them.
The boy and his mother dwelt in a garret in Paradise Court. It was a bare, miserable room, its only furniture an old iron bedstead, a rickety table, and two chairs. Open
ing out of the attic was a tiny chamber with a mattress in one corner, on which George slept. He had no bed-clothes, and was in the habit of covering himself with papers during the chill winter nights.
On the wall hung a small plaster crucifix. A sprig of box was thrust through the ring by which the cross was suspended. The window looked out upon a wilderness of chimneys and grimy tenement houses.
It seemed to George that God had been very good to him, although he was poor and ragged and half starved, for besides his old mother, whom he loved above everything, he had three good friends—Father Francis, the Roman Catholic priest; Miss Brand, who was devoting both time and money to the suffering poor in the district; and Maggie Reed, his little sweetheart, who was as poverty-stricken and as tattered as himself.
George sang in the choir at the church. He possessed a beautiful voice, and the priest felt sure that were it possible to procure him an efficient musical training he would have a future. But it seemed rash to even hope for a chance for the boy among the squalor and misery and sin which surrounded the poor. Father Francis, however, did not lose heart, because he was a good man, believing in God, and feeling convinced that He would stretch forth His
hand to the waif and help him in His own good time. The lad himself was even more hopeful than the priest, because he was young, and had resolved that death alone should prevent the fulfilment of his vow.
Not that poor George Ermen had much idea of what the term "a great man" meant, excepting that they usually dressed in frock coats, wore gaiters over their boots, and drove about in a carriage, all of which seemed very pleasant and most desirable to the bare-footed waif.