length recovered his gravity he ejaculated, "Well, I would have given
a guinea to have seen you before you did go".

Yet John Cassell was a diamond--though at that time the roughest
specimen one could come across from the pit's mouth to the Isle of
Dogs. His ideas were clear cut; he had confidence in himself, he meant
to make a name in the world,--and he _did_.

John Cassell was born in Manchester in 1817. His father, the
bread-winner of the family, had the misfortune to meet with an injury
which entirely disabled him, and from the effects of which he died
when John was quite young. His mother worked hard for her own and her
son's support, and had little time left to look very particularly to
the education of her boy. He, however, grew up strong and hardy.

It is true that when he ought to have been at school he was often at
play, or seeing something of the world, its sights and festivities,
on his own account. True, also, that he tumbled into the river, and
nearly ended his career at a very early age. Still he survived his
river catastrophe; and, though he gained little book learning,
possessed such a good and retentive memory, and was so observant,
that his mind became stored with vivid impressions of the scenes and
surroundings of his youth, which he related with great effect in
after-life.

He had, of course, to begin work at an early age. First of all, he
went into a cotton factory, and later to a velveteen factory; then,
having a taste for carpentering, he took to it as a trade, though he
was at best but a rough unskilled workman, tramping about the country,
and doing odd jobs wherever he could get them.