The clerk said he thought not.

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 488.

I told him that I was, and he turned to one of his clerks.

Out a job. I asked him if there wasn't anything at all that I could do. My earnestness made him look at me sharply.

"Willing to wash windows and scrub floors?" he asked.

"Has Wilmot got anybody yet to help htm in the downtown⁶ rink?" he asked.

"Very well", said Colonel Pope. "You can go to the rink and help Wilmot out for tomorrow."

The next day I went to the bicycle rink and found that what Wilmot wanted was a man to teach begin­ners to ride. I had never been on a bicycle in my life nor even very close to one, but in a couple of hours I haci learnt to ride a bicycle myself and was teaching other people.

Next day Mr. Wilmot paid me a dollar. He didn't say anything about my coming back the next morning, but I came and went to work, very much afraid that I would be told I wasn't needed. After that Mr. Wilmot did not exactly engage me, but he forgot to discharge me, and I came back every day and went to work. At the end of the week Colonel Pope sent for me and placed me in charge of the uptown⁷ rink.

Colonel Pope was a man who watched his workmen. I hadn't been mistaken when I felt that a young man would have a chance with him. He often used to say that "water would find its level", and he kept an eye on us. One day he called me into his office and asked me if I could edit a magazine.

"Yes, sir," I replied quickly. I remember it flashed through my mind that I could do anything I was put at — that if I were required to run an ocean steamer I could somehow manage to do it I could te^rn to do it as I went along⁸.1 answered as quickly as I sould get the