I'm afraid my father had a good many faults that made her life hard.

He was of a violent temper, and of course the deafness didn't improve it.

Well, one day a cab knocked him down in the King's Road, and from that injury, though not until a year after, he died.

There were only two children; I was the elder.

My mother couldn't keep me at school very long, so, at fourteen, I was sent into the office of the man who had been my father's partner, to serve him and learn the business.