I have often wondered why it was never discovered that I practised the fiddle in the garret. To be sure, it was only at those hours when my father was on the wharf. When I had the door shut and the windows open the maids below thought, I suppose, that the sounds came from the next house. However that may be, I was never found out. Now this fondness for music produced an unfortunate result. The sight of a book of arithmetic always filled me with a disgust unspeakable. The sight of a book of accounts inspired me with loathing. The daily aspect of my father's clerks all sitting in a row on high stools, and all driving the quill with heads bending over the paper, made me, even as a child, believe theirs to be the most miserable lot that Fortune has to offer her most unhappy victims. I still think so. Give me any other kind of life: make me a bargee: a coal-heaver: a sailor before the mast: an apothecary: a schoolmaster's usher: in all these occupations there will be something to redeem the position: but for the accountant there is nothing. All day long he sits within four walls: his pay is miserable: his food is insufficient: when in the evening he crawls away, there is only time left for him to take a little supper and go to his miserable bed. Imagine, therefore, my loathing when I understood that at the age of sixteen I was to take my place among these unfortunates, and to work my way towards the succession which awaited me--the partnership held by my father--by becoming a clerk like unto these others whom I had always pitied and generally despised. From that lot, however, there was no escape. All the partners, from father to son, had so worked their way. The reason of this rule was that the young men in this way acquired a knowledge of the business in all its branches before they were called upon to direct its enterprise, and to enter upon new ventures. I daresay that it was a good practical rule. But in my own case I found it almost intolerable. I was unlike the clerks in one or two respects: I had good food and plenty of it. And I received no salary.