Even the few who did come were loth to believe
that a working shoemaker could ever have gathered together such a large
collection by his own exertions.

"Do you mean to say," said one of the Aberdeen physicians to Edward,
"that you've maintained your wife and family by working at your trade,
all the while that you've been making this collection?"

"Yes, I do," Edward answered.

"Oh, nonsense!" the doctor said. "How is it possible you could have
done that?"

"By never losing a single minute or part of a minute," was the brave
reply, "that I could by any means improve."

It is wonderful indeed that when once Edward had begun to attract
anybody's attention at all, he and his exhibition should ever have been
allowed to pass so unnoticed in a great, rich, learned city like
Aberdeen. But it only shows how very hard it is for unassuming merit
to push its way; for the Aberdeen people still went unheeding past the
shop in Union Street, till Edward at last began to fear and tremble as
to how he should ever meet the expenses of the exhibition. After the
show had been open four weeks, one black Friday came when Edward never
took a penny the whole day. As he sat there alone and despondent in
the empty room, the postman brought him a letter. It was from his
master at Banff. "Return immediately," it said, "or you will be
discharged." What on earth could he do? He couldn't remove his
collection; he couldn't pay his debt. A few more days passed, and he
saw no way out of it. At last, in blank despair, he offered the whole
collection for sale. A gentleman proposed to pay him the paltry sum of
20 pounds 10s. for the entire lot, the slow accumulations of ten long
years. It was a miserable and totally inadequate price, but Edward
could get no more. In the depths of his misery, he accepted it. The
gentleman took the collection home, gave it to his boy, and finally
allowed it all, for want of care and attention, to go to rack and ruin.
And so that was the end of ten years of poor Thomas Edward's
unremitting original work in natural history. A sadder tale of
unrequited labour in the cause of science has seldom been written.

How he ever recovered from such a downfall to all his hopes and
expectations is extraordinary. But the man had a wonderful power of
bearing up against adverse circumstances; and when, after six weeks'
absence, he returned to Banff, ruined and dispirited, he set to work
once more, as best he might, at