ad never quite mastered the Rule of Three,
and it was only when Wigham took him in hand that he made much progress
in the higher branches of arithmetic. He generally took his slate with
him to the Wighams' cottage, when he had his sums set, that he might work
them out while tending his engine on the following day. When too busy to
be able to call upon Wigham, he sent the slate to have the former sums
corrected and new ones set. Sometimes also, at leisure moments, he was
enabled to do a little "figuring" with chalk upon the sides of the
coal-waggons. So much patient perseverance could not but eventually
succeed; and by dint of practice and study, Stephenson was enabled to
master successively the various rules of arithmetic.

John Wigham was of great use to his pupil in many ways. He was a good
talker, fond of argument, an extensive reader as country reading went in
those days, and a very suggestive thinker. Though his store of
information might be comparatively small when measured with that of more
highly-cultivated minds, much of it was entirely new to Stephenson, who
regarded him as a very clever and ingenious person. Wigham taught him to
draw plans and sections; though in this branch Stephenson proved so apt
that he soon surpassed his master. A volume of 'Ferguson's Lectures on
Mechanics,' which fell into their hands, was a great treasure to both the
students. One who remembers their evening occupations says he used to
wonder what they meant by weighing the air and water in so odd a way.
They were trying the specific gravities of objects; and the devices which
they employed, the mechanical shifts to which they were put, were often
of the rudest kind. In these evening entertainments, the mechanical
contrivances were supplied by Stephenson, whilst Wigham found the
scientific rationale. The opportunity thus afforded to the former of
cultivating his mind by contact with one wiser than himself proved of
great value, and in after-life Stephenson gratefully remembered the
assistance which, when a humble workman, he had derived from John Wigham,
the farmer's son.

His leisure moments thus carefully improved, it will be inferred that
Stephenson continued a sober man. Though his notions were never extreme
on this point, he was systematically temperate. It appears that on the
invitation of his master, he had, on one or two occasions, been induced
to join him in a forenoon glass of ale in the public-house of the
vil