'Before leaving the cotton mill I had the good fortune to make my first acquaintance with the earlier works of Charles Dickens. Our manager, who was a reading man, was subscribing to periodically issued numbers of the "Pickwick Papers". He had seen me in the breakfast hour poring over the contents of a dirty rag paper, - not that the matter was dirty, - but the paper itself was oiled, and worn from its being constantly carried about in my pocket. This was "Cleave's Gazette", published weekly at a penny, a sum I managed to screw out of my threepence a fortnight "old brass".'