Near the end of my fourteenth year I was apprenticed to @Valentine, @King & @Co., cotton importers, @Liverpool, as a "pair of legs." My father had died suddenly, leaving me and his property in the possession of my stepmother and my guardian. It was in regard to their urgent advice that I left my home in @London (with little hesitation, since my life there had never been happy) to study the art of making money. When I arrived at the scene of my expected triumphs, I was assigned to the somewhat humble position of errand boy. In common with other boys who performed a similar service for the firm, I was known as "a pair of legs." Housing of a rather basic nature had been set aside for me in the western outskirts of the city near the banks of the @Mersey.
