“Oh, will you be much longer?”
In the course of my many entertaining interviews I learnt that he first went into a shop when he was aged 8, in the year 1847. Tinsmiths then used to fix all gaspipes, and I have found out since that Westminster Bridge was first illuminated with gas in 1813. But to go back to my confrère. He did not stop in the shop long, as he was sent to school for about twelve months. The school was in a cellar, with forms round, on which there was always a birch-rod handy, and as the schoolmaster had been a soldier he knew how to use it, and my friend added: “You understand me—there were no inspectors in those days.”
It was on the floor of this workshop that I literally “picked up” the James Dixon quart tankard which I described under Marks. It lay amongst other scrap pewter in a dark corner, ready for going into the melting-pot, when I kicked against it and so prolonged its life. It is now 96.
I am afraid my tinsmith is no respecter of old age, for he is at the time I write this only eighty, and when I congratulated him upon his steady hand and wonderful eyesight he smiled and said: “My mother was ninety-one, and she didn’t know what spectacles meant.”
More power to his elbow.
Pewter Snuff Boxes.
Plate XXII.
Pewter Pots (All inscribed except the top row).