Having cleared off all demands in the house, he started for the railway
station; but had scarcely reached the street, before he was accosted by
an old man with a broom in his hand, who, with an exceedingly low bow,
said,--

"I is here, yer lordship."

"I did not send for you; what is your business?" demanded Jerome.

"I is the man what opened your lordship's cab-door, when your lordship
came to the house on Monday last, and I know your honor won't allow a
poor man to starve."

Putting a sixpence in the old man's hand, Jerome once more started for
the depot. Having obtained letters of introduction to persons in
Manchester, he found no difficulty in getting a situation in a large
manufacturing house there. Although the salary was small, yet the
situation was a much better one than he had hoped to obtain. His
compensation as out-door clerk enabled him to employ a man to teach him
at night, and, by continued study and attention to business, he was
soon promoted.

After three years in his new home, Jerome was placed in a still higher
position, where his salary amounted to fifteen hundred dollars a year.
The drinking, smoking, and other expensive habits, which the clerks
usually indulged in, he carefully avoided.

Being fond of poetry, he turned his attention to literature. Johnson's
"Lives of the Poets," the writings of Dryden, Addison, Pope, Clarendon,
and other authors of celebrity, he read with attention. The knowledge
which he thus picked up during his leisure hours gave him a great
advantage over the other clerks, and caused his employers to respect
him far more than any other in their establishment. So eager was he to
improve the time that he determined to see how much he could read
during the unemployed time of night and morning, and his success was
beyond his expectations.

CHAPTER XXX

NEW FRIENDS.

Broken down in health, after ten years of close confinement in his
situation, Jerome resolved to give it up, and thereby release himself
from an employment which seemed calculated to send him to a premature
grave.

It was on a beautiful morning in summer that he started for Scotland,
having made up his mind to travel for his health. After visiting
Edinburgh and Glasgow, he concluded to spend a few days in the old town
of Perth, with a friend whose acquaintance he had made in Manchester.
During the second day of his stay in Perth, while crossing the main
street, Jerome saw a pony-chaise coming toward h