“I was born without a fortune, as many people are.  When about five years of age, I was sent to a parish school in Roxburghshire, and procrastination went with me.  Being possessed of a tolerable memory, I was not more deficient than my schoolfellows; but the task which they had studied the previous evening was by me seldom looked at till the following morning, and my seat was the last to be occupied of any other on the form.  My lessons were committed to memory by a few hurried glances, and repeated with a faltering rapidity, which not unfrequently puzzled the ear of the teacher to follow me.  But what was thus hastily learned, was as suddenly forgotten.  They were mere surface impressions, each obliterated by the succeeding.  And though I had run over a tolerable general education, I left school but little wiser than when I entered it.

“My parents—­peace to their memory!”—­here the old fellow looked most feelingly, and a tear of filial recollection glistened in his eyes:  it added a dignity to the recital of his weakness, and I almost reverenced him—­“My parents,” continued he, “had no ambition to see me rise higher in society than an honest tradesman; and at thirteen I was bound apprentice to a shoemaker.  Yes, sir, I was—­I am a shoemaker; and but for my curse—­my malady—­had been an ornament to my profession.  I have measured the foot of a princess, sir; I have made slippers to his Majesty!” Here his tongue acquired new vigour from the idea of his own importance.  “Yes, sir, I have made slippers to his Majesty; yet I am an unlucky—­I am a bewitched—­I am a ruined man.  But to proceed with my history.  During the first year of my apprenticeship, I acted in the capacity of errand boy; and, as such, had to run upon many an unpleasant message—­sometimes to ask money, frequently to borrow it.  Now, sir, I am also a bashful man, and, as I was saying, bashfulness is one of the blood relations which procrastination has fastened upon me.  While acting in my last-mentioned capacity, I have gone to the house, gazed at every window, passed it and repassed it, placed my hand upon the rapper, withdrawn it, passed it and repassed it again, stood hesitating and consulting with myself, then resolved to defer it till the next day, and finally returned to my master, not with a direct lie, but a broad equivocation; and this was another of the cousins-german which procrastination introduced to my acquaintance.

“In the third year of my servitude, I became fond of reading; was esteemed a quick workman; and, having no desire for money beyond what was necessary to supply my wants, I gave unrestricted indulgence to my new passion.  We had each an allotted quantity of work to perform weekly.  Conscious of being able to complete it in half the time, and having yielded myself solely to my ruinous propensity to delay, I seldom did anything before the Thursday; and the remaining days were spent in hurry, bustle, and confusion.  Occasionally I overrated my abilities—­my task was unfinished, and I was compelled to count a dead horse.  Week after week this grew upon me, till I was so firmly saddled, that, until the expiration of my apprenticeship, I was never completely freed from it.  This was another of my curse’s handmaidens.”