Of the family album I would rather not speak. It is scarcely yet extinct. A respectable silence shall accompany its departing days. Perhaps these things may to some appear mere trivialities; but to recall them awakens many memories, brings back thoughts of bygone days--days illumined with the sunshine of Youth and Hope on which it is pleasant to linger. As someone has finely said: "We lose a proper sense of the richness of life if we do not look back on the scenes of our youth with imagination and warmth." CHAPTER V. EARLY OFFICE LIFE In the year 1867, at the age of sixteen, I became a junior clerk in the Midland Railway at Derby, at a salary of 15 pounds a year. From pre-natal days I was destined for the railway service, as an oyster to its shell. The possibility of any other vocation for his sons never entered the mind of my father, nor the mind of many another father in the town of Derby. My railway life began on a drizzling dismal day in the early autumn. My father took me to the office in which I was to make a start and presented me to the chief clerk. I was a tall, thin, delicate, shy, sensitive youth, with curly hair, worn rather long, and I am sure I did not look at all a promising specimen for encountering the rough and tumble of railway work. The chief clerk handed me over to one of his assistants, who without ceremony seated me on a tall stool at a high desk, and put before me, to my great dismay, a huge pile of formidable documents which he called _Way Bills_. He gave me some instructions, but I was too confused to understand them, and too shy to ask questions. I only know that I felt very miserable and hopelessly at sea. Visions of being dismissed as an incompetent rose before me; but soon, to my great relief, it was discovered that the Way Bills were too much for me and that I must begin at more elementary duties. A few weeks afterwards, when I had found my feet a little, I was promoted from the simple tasks assigned to me in consequence of my first failure and attached to the goods-train-delays clerk, a long-bearded elderly man with a very kind face. He was quite fatherly to me and took a great deal of trouble in teaching me my work. With him I soon felt at ease, and was happy in gaining his approbation. One thing found favour in his eyes; I wrote a good clear hand and at fair speed. In those days penmanship was a fine art. No cramped or sprawling writing passed muster. Typewriting was not dreamed of, and, at Derby, shorthand had not appeared on the scene.