I earned the reputation of being "an awfu' laddie." In this way I probably developed the strain of argumentativeness, or perhaps combativeness, which has always remained with me.
In the performance of these duties I was often late for school, but the master, knowing the cause, forgave the lapses.

In the same connection I may mention that I had often the shop errands to run after school, so that in looking back upon my life I have the satisfaction of feeling that I became useful to my parents even at the early age of ten.

Soon after that the accounts of the various people who dealt with the shop were entrusted to my keeping so that I became acquainted, in a small way, with business affairs even in childhood.
One cause of misery there was, however, in my school experience.

The boys nicknamed me "Martin's pet," and sometimes called out that dreadful epithet to me as I passed along the street.

I did not know all that it meant, but it seemed to me a term of the utmost opprobrium, and I know that it kept me from responding as freely as I should otherwise have done to that excellent teacher, my only schoolmaster, to whom I owe a debt of gratitude which I regret I never had opportunity to do more than acknowledge before he died.
I may mention here a man whose influence over me cannot be overestimated, my Uncle Lauder, George Lauder's father.[9] My father was necessarily constantly at work in the loom shop and had little leisure to bestow upon me through the day.