Is it necessary to say that never having known any training in thrift, having indeed belonged to the least provident of all our notably improvident workers, I soon found the shoe pinching, soon discovered that forty shillings a week was devoid of elasticity, especially when curbed by payments to be made for furniture purchased on the very unsatisfactory "hire system"? Perhaps not, but in any case it was this, coupled with the knowledge that all my fellow clerks were driven by the necessities of their miserable pay into bye-ways of supplementing their income, that lured me back to trade again. Here let me digress for a purpose. Many and grave scandals have been unearthed in the Civil Service, note well, in the higher branches even, but none I think greater than those where poorly paid clerks toiled to do the work for which their seniors were paid; said seniors being meanwhile engaged in amassing fortunes as eminent authorities upon art, the drama, or sport. But in the office where I was employed no such scandals were possible, seeing that the pay of the most powerful clerk therein was less than the annual tailor's bill of some of the superior Civil Service clerks. And whatever might be the value put upon our labours by those without, it is at least incontrovertible that we worked hard, so hard indeed that our superimposed labours after hours in order to keep the domestic pot boiling were cruel.

Of the manner of my escape from that Stygian lake with all its monotony and despair of outlook, I have perhaps said more than enough in print already, and in any case it would here be quite out of place. But of the time during which I in common with many thousands of my fellows in London endeavoured to live respectably, and rear a family by honest toil, I feel free to speak, and if incidentally I can throw a few side-lights, humorous or pathetic, as the case may be, upon the strenuous lives led by small London tradesmen, I shall be proportionately glad.

It only remains that while in the following pages fiction finds no place, no real names are given for the most obvious reasons.

Frank T. Bullen.

Millfield,
Melbourn.

CONTENTS

CHAP.PAGE
I. Entering Business[1]
II. Continued Trouble[15]
III. Freedom and Want[30]
IV. My Trade Apprenticeship Finishes[46]
V. Into Trade in Spite of Myself[61]
VI. Developments[77]
VII. I Take a Shop[93]
VIII. Getting Broken In[109]
IX. In Harness[125]
X. The Cottage Ornée[140]
XI. Nearing the End[155]
XII. Towards Carey Street[170]
XIII. Collapse[186]
XIV. Relief at Last[202]
XV. Legal Experiences[218]
XVI. Through to Freedom[235]
XVII. The Day Dawns[252]
XVIII. The Joy of Success[268]
XIX. Conclusion[284]