A gaunt, hard-featured domestic completed this interesting family, and she was uncommon too.  By no means young, what Balzac calls “a woman of canonical age,” she resembled Pere Grandet’s tall Nanon.  Like Nanon, she had been the devoted servant of the family for nearly a quarter of a century, and like her, had no interest outside that of her master and mistress.  She was always working, rarely went out, spoke little, but ministered to the wants of Tom and myself, and waited on us with unremitting attention.

Despite all drawbacks, however, they were fine lodgings.  The old lady was a wonderful cook and had all the liberality of her race.

New Year’s Day, the great Scotch holiday, Tom and I spent in Edinburgh, and returned much impressed with its stately beauty.

The next morning I entered upon my work at St. Rollox, where the stores department of the Caledonian Railway is situated.  The head of the department was styled Stores Superintendent.  I thought him the most impressive looking man I had ever seen.  He overpowered me; in his presence I never felt at ease.  He was a big man, and looked bigger than he was; good-looking too; ruddy, portly, well-dressed and formal.  An embodiment of commercial energy and dignity.  In his face gravity, keenness, and good health were blended.  Soon after I joined his staff he left the Caledonian to become General Manager of Young’s Paraffin Oil Company, and subsequently its Managing Director.  Success, I believe, always attended him.  No position could lose any of its importance in his hands.  When he left St. Rollox a great blank was felt; he filled so large a space.  He has lately gone to his rest full of years and honors.

I fear he never liked me, nor had any great opinion of my abilities.  This was not to be wondered at, for I am sure I did not display any excessive zeal for the work on which I was then employed, and which I found monotonous and uninteresting.

He confided to his chief clerk, who was my friend, that one day he had seen me, in business hours, in the city, smoking a cigarette and looking at the girls, and was sure I would never do much good.  He had very strict business notions.  I confessed to the cigarette, but not to the graver charge.  It was a wholesome tonic, however, and pulled me up.  I wanted to get on in life; ambition was stirring within me; and I formed some good resolutions which, as time went on, I kept more or less faithfully.

At St. Rollox one’s daily lunch was a matter of some difficulty.  It was a district of factories, and the only restaurants were the Great Western Cooking Depots, where one could get a steak and bread and cheese for fivepence, but the rooms and tables and accessories were, to say the least, unappetising.  Hunger had to be satisfied, however, and I had to swallow my pride and my five-pennyworth.  I varied this occasionally by bringing with me my own sandwiches and eating them seated on a tombstone in Sighthill cemetery, which was less than a quarter of a mile distant from the stores department.