The working hours, it is true, were very long,--being from six in the morning until 8.15 at night; excepting on Saturday, when we knocked off at four.

However, all this gave me so much the more experience; and, taking advantage of it, I found that, when I had reached the age of eighteen, I was intrusted with the full charge of erecting one side of a locomotive.

I had to accomplish the same amount of work as my mate on the other side, one Murray Playfair, a powerful, hard-working Scotchman.

My strength and endurance were sometimes taxed to the utmost, and required the intervals of my labour to be spent in merely eating and sleeping.
I afterwards went through the machine-shops.

I was fortunate enough to get charge of the best screw-cutting and brass-turning lathe in the shop; the former occupant, Jack Singleton, having just been promoted to a foreman's berth at the Messrs.