So it was with M'Kay. He did not convert Drury
Lane, but he saved two or three. One man whom we came to know was a
labourer in Somerset House, a kind of coal porter employed in
carrying coals into the offices there from the cellars below, and in
other menial duties. He had about fifteen or sixteen shillings a
week, and as the coals must necessarily be in the different rooms
before ten o'clock in the morning, he began work early, and was
obliged to live within an easy distance of the Strand. This man had
originally been a small tradesman in a country town. He was honest,
but he never could or never would push his trade in any way. He was
fond of all kinds of little mechanical contrivings, disliked his
shop, and ought to have been a carpenter or cabinet-maker--not as a
master but as a journeyman, for he had no ability whatever to control
men or direct large operations. He was married, and a sense of duty
to his wife--he fortunately had no children--induced him to stand or
sit behind his counter with regularity, but people would not come to
buy of him, because he never seemed to consider their buying as any
favour conferred on him; and thus he became gradually displaced by
his more energetic or more obsequious rivals.
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