directly. I shall keep it every
day, as I used to keep your old little room, my darling."

The solitary condition I now fell into for some weeks was ended one day
by Mr. Murdstone telling me that I was to be put into the business of
Murdstone and Grinby.

"You will earn enough to provide for your eating and drinking, and
pocket money," said Mr. Murdstone. "Your lodging, which I have arranged
for, will be paid by me. So will your washing, and your clothes will be
looked after for you, too. You are now going to London, David, to begin
the world on your own account."

"In short, you are provided for," observed his sister, "and will please
to do your duty."

So I became, at ten years old, a little labouring hind in the service of
Murdstone and Grinby.

Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse was at the waterside, down in
Blackfriars, and an important branch of their trade was the supply of
wines and spirits to certain packet ships. A great many empty bottles
were one of the consequences of this traffic, and a certain number of
men and boys, of whom I was one, were employed to rinse and wash them.
When the empty bottles ran short, there were labels to be pasted on full
ones, or corks to be fitted to them, or finished bottles to be packed in
casks.

There were three or four boys, counting me. Mick Walker was the name of
the oldest; he wore a ragged apron, and a paper cap. The next boy was
introduced to me under the extraordinary name of Mealy Potatoes, which
had been bestowed upon him on account of his complexion, which was pale,
or mealy.

No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this
companionship, and compared these associates with those of my happier
childhood, with the boys at Salem House. Often in the early morning,
when I was alone, I mingled my tears with the water in which I was
washing the bottles, and sobbed as if there were a flaw in my breast,
and it were in danger of bursting.

My salary was six or seven shillings a week--I think it was six at
first, and seven afterwards--and I had to support myself on that money
all the week. My breakfast was a penny loaf and a pennyworth of milk,
and I kept another small loaf and a modicum of cheese to make my supper
on at night.

I was so young and childish, and so little qualified to undertake the
whole charge of my existence, that often of a morning I could not resist
the stale pastry put out for sale at half price at the pastry-cooks'
doors, a