Borrow has told us frankly what a poor lawyer's clerk he made--he was always thinking of things remote from that profession, of gypsies, of prize-fighters, and of word-makers.

Yet he loved the head of the firm, William Simpson, who must have been a kind and tolerant guide to the curious youth.

Simpson was for a time Town Clerk of Norwich, and his portrait hangs in the Blackfriars Hall.

Borrow went to live with Mr.
Simpson in the Upper Close near the Grammar School.

Archdeacon Groome recalled having seen Borrow 'reserved and solitary' haunting the precincts of the playground; another schoolboy, William Drake, remembered him as 'tall, spare, dark-complexioned.'[44] Here is Borrow's account of his master and of his work: A more respectable-looking individual was never seen; he really looked what he was, a gentleman of the law--there was nothing of the pettifogger about him: somewhat under the middle size, and somewhat rotund in person, he was always dressed in a full suit of black, never worn long enough to become threadbare.