'Yes,' said the youth, eagerly bending forward.
'Is'—and here the elderly individual laid down his pipe upon the table—'that it will be as well to go on improving yourself in German!'
Taylor it was who, when Borrow determined to try his fortunes in London with those bundles of unsaleable manuscripts, gave him introductions to Sir Richard Phillips and to Thomas Campbell. It was in the agnostic spirit that he had learned from Taylor that he wrote during this period to his one friend in London, Roger Kerrison. Kerrison was grandson of Sir Roger Kerrison, Mayor of Norwich in 1778, as his son Thomas was after him in 1806. Roger was articled, as was Borrow, to the firm of Simpson and Rackham, while his brother Allday was in a drapery store in Norwich, but with mind bent on commercial life in Mexico. George was teaching him Spanish in these years as a preparation for his great adventure. Roger had gone to London to continue his professional experience. He finally became a Norwich solicitor and died in 1882. Allday went to Zacatecas, Mexico, and acquired riches. John Borrow followed him there and met with an early death, as we have seen. Borrow and Roger Kerrison were great friends at this time; but when Lavengro was written they had ceased to be this, and Roger is described merely as an 'acquaintance' who had found lodgings for him on his first visit to London. As a matter of fact that trip to London was made easy for Borrow by the opportunity given to him of sharing lodgings with Roger Kerrison at Milman Street, Bedford Row, where Borrow put in an appearance on 1st April 1824, some two months after the following letter was written:
To Mr. Roger Kerrison, 18 Milman Street, Bedford Row.
Norwich, Jany. 20, 1824.
Dearest Roger,—I did not imagine when we separated in the street, on the day of your departure from Norwich, that we should not have met again: I had intended to have come and seen you off, but happening to dine at W. Barron's I got into discourse, and the hour slipt past me unawares.
I have been again for the last fortnight laid up with that detestable complaint which destroys my strength, impairs my understanding, and will in all probability send me to the grave, for I am now much worse than when you saw me last. But nil desperandum est, if ever my health mends, and possibly it may by the time my clerkship is expired, I intend to live in London, write plays, poetry, etc., abuse religion and get myself prosecuted, for I would not for an ocean of gold remain any longer than I am forced in this dull and gloomy town.
I have no news to regale you with, for there is none abroad, but I live in the expectation of shortly hearing from you, and being informed of your plans and projects; fear not to be prolix, for the slightest particular cannot fail of being interesting to one who loves you far better than parent or relation, or even than the God whom bigots would teach him to adore, and who subscribes himself, Yours unalterably,
George Borrow.[47]
Borrow might improve his German—not sufficiently as we shall see in our next chapter—but he would certainly never make a lawyer. Long years afterwards, when, as an old man, he was frequently in Norwich, he not seldom called at that office in Tuck's Court, where five strange years of his life had been spent. A clerk in Rackham's office in these later years recalls him waiting for the principal as he in his youth had watched others waiting.[48]