said that the walk was one in which I had no experience whatever--that
even the little knowledge of figures which I had acquired at school had
been suffered to fade and get dim in my mind from want of practice--and
that I feared I would make but a very indifferent accountant. I shall
undertake for you, said Mr. Ross, and do my best to assist you. All you
have to do at present is just to signify your acceptance of the offer
made. I referred to the young man who, I understood, had been already
nominated accountant. Mr. Ross stated that, being wholly a stranger to
him, and as the office was one of great trust, he had, as the
responsible party, sought the security of a guarantee, which the
gentleman who had recommended the young man declined to give; and so his
recommendation had fallen to the ground. "But _I_ can give you no
guarantee," I said. "From you," rejoined Mr. Ross, "none shall ever be
asked." And such was one of the more special _Providences_ of my life;
for why should I give it a humbler name?

In a few days after, I had taken leave of my young friend in good hope,
and was tossing in an old and somewhat crazy coasting vessel, on my way
to the parent bank at Edinburgh, to receive there the instructions
necessary to the branch accountant. I had wrought as an operative mason,
including my term of apprenticeship, for fifteen years--no
inconsiderable portion of the more active part of a man's life; but the
time was not altogether lost. I enjoyed in these years fully the average
amount of happiness, and learned to know more of the Scottish people
than is generally known. Let me add--for it seems to be very much the
fashion of the time to draw dolorous pictures of the condition of the
labouring classes--that from the close of the first year in which I
wrought as a journeyman up till I took final leave of the mallet and
chisel, I never knew what it was to want a shilling; that my two uncles,
my grandfather, and the mason with whom I served my apprenticeship--all
working men--had had a similar experience; and that it was the
experience of my father also. I cannot doubt that deserving mechanics
may, in exceptional cases, be exposed to want; but I can as little doubt
that the cases _are_ exceptional, and that much of the suffering of the
class is a consequence either of improvidence on the part of the
competently skilled, or of a course of trifling during the term of
apprenticeship--quite as common as trifling at school--t