The acquisition of a moderate income could not induce me to give myself up to idleness and self-indulgence. I determined that I would take up the reins of management where my father had dropped them and make his business into the success it deserved to be. For this purpose I decided to go right through, starting at the very bottom as an inferior clerk, and working my way up. This was by no means an uncommon thing in those days for the junior partner of a business firm to do, and I have always felt that it gave us a great advantage, which many modern young men are unfortunate enough to miss. It meant that we got to know our employés, and to earn their confidence by working side by side with them. It meant that we had a practical, first-hand knowledge of every department of the work, instead of depending on information supplied to us by others. It meant that we had the opportunity of winning our spurs, by showing in a humble sphere the capacity which alone would qualify us for a superior position. I have known a Gosport, a Macpherson, and a Schenkenberg serve their apprenticeship in this way, and express gratitude afterwards for the salutary discipline it entailed. For myself, I could not well leave my mother, who depended very much on me since our bereavement, but I had been careful to have the teledictaphone installed at Greylands as soon as we took it over, and it was thus possible for me, without ever actually going to the office, to take my orders every morning like a simple clerk, and to execute them to the satisfaction of my employers. In rather less than a year I had gained such a thorough grasp of the business and given such evidence of financial ability that I allowed myself to be advanced to the position of a partner in the firm. Not that, in doing so, I had any intention of giving myself an easy time or doing less than my share in the actual direction of the firm: from ten to one every morning and from three to five in the afternoon, unless any serious rival claims distracted my attention, the teledictaphone was always at my side and the affairs of the office engrossed me.