lie. There's always a
royal road, if you happen to be king of enough money. I might be an
ordinary apprentice or a special pupil. If I was apprenticed I should
have to start at six o'clock in the morning and work just like the men.
I would stay in one shop for seven years and be turned out an expert
mechanic. And I would have to wait six months for an opening, as they
were full-up. If I came as a pupil, however, I would be allowed to spend
so much time in each shop, including the offices; I could start at nine
o'clock in the morning and finish the whole business in three years. The
premium was nine hundred dollars, and I could start that minute. They
didn't seem to care how soon they got that nine hundred dollars.

"We talked it over in the train. Of course, I was all for the royal
road and had plenty of good arguments in favour of it. What I want you
to notice is that my mother was in favour of it, too! Think of it. She
had been brought up in a hard school. She knew what it was to live
sparingly and how useful early discipline was. She had told me often
that all great men had a hard struggle. Therefore, how could I be a
great man if I didn't have a hard struggle? And yet she was so obsessed
with this notion of gentility that she deliberately gave me a soft time.
She paid out three hundred dollars every year for three years....

"That time was what you might call a comedy of errors. I am not going to
admit that I idled, for it is not true. I was ambitious. Since I was to
be an engineer I went at it bald-headed. I went to polytechnics and
night-schools, I spent whole nights in study, and did everything that
any young chap could do. The whole of my efforts did not amount to a row
of rivets. Why? I was up against the gentility again. I met the
professional classes face to face.

"There were three other chaps there as pupils, and it so happened that
they were every one from the great public schools. One was from
Haileybury, one from Eton, and another from Winchester. When they found
I was not one of them they ragged me, of course, which was good and
proper. I often think the ragging in public schools is one of the few
useful things they do there. When these men found I intended to study my
profession they thought I was stark mad. They were all nice young
fellows and had money coming to them. Why should they bother? They
thought I ought to look at it in the same light. Eventually I did. It
was three to one. I found out tha