orming a just
estimate of future possibilities, or else, through the indulgence of
what may be called a vague habit of thought, he had lost the power of
seeing things as they are. Thus all his excellencies and good gifts
were neutralized at this time, so far as his family were concerned,
and went for practically nothing. He was, according to his son's
testimony, full of industry, most conscientious in the discharge of
any business, unwearying in loving patience and solicitude when those
bound to him by blood or friendship were ill or in trouble, "as
kind-hearted and generous a man as ever lived in the world." Yet as
debts accumulated, and accommodation bills shed their baleful shadow
on his life, and duns grew many and furious, he became altogether
immersed in mean money troubles, and suffered the son who was to shed
such lustre on his name to remain for a time without the means of
learning, and to sink first into a little household drudge, and then
into a mere warehouse boy.

So little Charles, aged from eleven to twelve, first blacked boots,
and minded the younger children, and ran messages, and effected the
family purchases--which can have been no pleasant task in the then
state of the family credit,--and made very close acquaintance with the
inside of the pawnbrokers' shops, and with the purchasers of
second-hand books, disposing, among other things, of the little store
of books he loved so well; and then, when his father was imprisoned,
ran more messages hither and thither, and shed many childish tears in
his father's company--the father doubtless regarding the tears as a
tribute to his eloquence, though, heaven knows, there were other
things to cry over besides his sonorous periods. After which a
connection, James Lamert by name, who had lived with the family before
they moved from Camden Town to Gower Street, and was manager of a
worm-eaten, rat-riddled blacking business, near old Hungerford Market,
offered to employ the lad, on a salary of some six shillings a week,
or thereabouts. The duties which commanded these high emoluments
consisted of the tying up and labelling of blacking pots. At first
Charles, in consideration probably of his relationship to the manager,
was allowed to do his tying, clipping, and pasting in the
counting-house. But soon this arrangement fell through, as it
naturally would, and he descended to the companionship of the other
lads, similarly employed, in the warehouse below. They were no