ame, I trow,
A partner in my weal and woe.

My newly-found friends and I went back to Middlesborough. Going on the
quay one morning, I fell in with two men, whom I asked if there was any
chance of a job. After scanning me o'er and o'er they asked what I was
able to do--what trade I was at last. Out of my thousand and odd
"qualifications" I decided that I "had done a bit o' sailoring." "Can you
do anything in the dockyard?" asked one of them. "Yes," I thought I
could. Then was I engaged.

AS A DOCK-YARD LABOURER

The salary was fixed by my employers at 5 pounds per month, though I was
told that I should have to work a month "in hand;" which was rather hard
for me, seeing that I was without money. Soon after I again fell in with
the O'Gormans, and was introduced to the family. The head of the
household was Peter O'Gorman, who had been in America and understood
dock-yard business a good bit. Well, I got on fairly well as docker--a
free labourer, I think I was,--although the work was not by any means
regular, depending as it did on the arrival of timber-laden vessels from
Norway and Sweden. Having a good deal of time hanging on my hands I
visited various parts of the town, and it was one morning, while on an
errand of this sort, that one of the O'Gormans came up to me and showed
me an advertisement inviting applications for the execution of certain
excavating work in connection with the Middlesborough new cemetery.

ACTING THE NAVVY CONTRACTOR

The advertisement gave great prominence to the instruction, "No Irish
need apply." Now, my friend O'Gorman was an Irishman, and he was desirous
of applying for the job. So he asked me if I would be good enough to don
myself in his labourer's clothes and try to secure the contract. I said I
should be glad to do so. After receiving due instruction as to how to
proceed in the application, I went and presented myself to the
contractor. That individual, I found out, was a Scotchman of the name of
Macpherson. He put different questions to me as to whether I was capable
of doing the work, &c. One of his inquiries had reference to my abilities
for drawing. Could I draw? "Yes," I thought I could, and on a sheet of
paper which Mr Macpherson supplied, I tried my hand at drawing. My
production was satisfactory. "Can you find men?" he asked. "Yes," said I.
"What about the tools?" "Oh!" I had to reply, "I have no tools." This
notwithstanding, he said, I might start on the job n