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By some strange freak of good fortune to which I was totally unaccustomed, the very next day after my summary dismissal from the trunk-maker's, I got a job in a big dairy company's business. I have forgotten exactly how it happened, but I think that one of my street chums told me he had seen the notice in the shop window, and hurrying off at once, I secured the situation. At first blush I was almost overwhelmed with the magnitude of my good fortune. For my wages were to be six shillings per week, and a pint of milk twice a day, which to me was wealth indeed, and I began to have visions of getting a little pocket-money out of my earnings, and perhaps even, blissful thought, a new suit of clothes, a possession that I had never yet enjoyed.

My delight was somewhat tempered by the fact that my hours of business were to be from 4.30 A.M. to 9 P.M., on Sunday and week-day alike, in summer; and from 5.30 A.M. to 9 P.M. in winter. But of course that was merely a detail. As I had to begin at so unholy an hour in the morning, of course it was unthinkable that I could get any food in the house, and so my landlady made arrangements, in consideration of receiving the whole of my earnings and the milk, to subsidise a local coffee-stall keeper to the extent of one cup of coffee and one slice of cake, price together one penny, every morning. This I bolted at the street corner, often scalding my mouth, for I need hardly say that the margin of time was never very great. And if a boy arrived late, well, there was an end, for his van had gone without him, since it might not linger, obstructing the others.