Such work did not suit him, and he went as rivet-boy in the Vauxhall Ironworks, and when he was fourteen he became apprentice to an engineer. He had had little schooling, and before he began his apprenticeship he had begun to educate himself.
While he was an apprentice he taught himself French, and laid the foundation of a good reading knowledge of German. He also began public speaking at out-of-door meetings, and it was at these meetings, with their constantly shifting crowds, with innumerable interruptions, and almost continual opposition, that he developed readiness in debate and coolness while under a hot fire of questions.
At nineteen his apprenticeship was finished and he went to South Africa as foreman-engineer on some work being done at the delta of the Niger. Burns, alone of all the white men there, passed through the year the work lasted without a day of serious sickness.
"That's because I don't smoke and don't drink," he said. "I found I couldn't do such things and continue work."
It was while employed in South Africa that Burns unearthed a copy of Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations," from beneath a pile of sand and rubbish where it had been thrown by some predecessor on the work. This was the only book he had for several weeks of his stay, and he read it and studied it until he practically committed it to memory.
Noted for Physical Courage.
The battered old copy of "The Wealth of Nations" found there in South Africa forms one of the treasures of Burns's library, and there are in England few private libraries that can equal his in the department of economics and sociology.
The courage Burns subsequently displayed in political fights was shown in a physical way during his South African period. On one occasion a sick man fell into a river swarming with water-snakes and crocodiles. Burns, without an instant's hesitation, jumped in and rescued him.
On another occasion the propeller blades of the steam-launch which the men were using worked loose and sunk to the muddy bottom of the river. The water was thick and filthy with rank, decaying vegetable matter, and there was an added source of danger in the venomous creatures that might be lurking there.
The skipper of the launch was preparing to dive for the blades when Burns stopped him: