Excerpt from Alton Locke, Vol. 2 of 2: Tailor and Poet, an Autobiography The old man, silently and as a matter of course, unpacked for me my little portmanteau (lent me by my cousin), and placed my things neatly in various drawers went down, brought up a jug of hot water, put it on the washing-table - told me that dinner was at six - that the half-hour bell rang at half-past five - and that, if I wanted anything, the footman would answer the bell (bells seem ing a prominent idea in his theory of the universe) - and so left me, wondering at the strange fact that free men, with free wills, do sell themselves, by the hundred thou sand, to perform menial offices for other men, not for love, but for money; becoming, to define them strictly, bell-answering animals and are honest, happy, contented, in such a life. A man - servant, a soldier, and a Jesuit, are to me the three great wonders of humanity - three forms of moral suicide, for which I never had the slightest gleam of sympathy, or even comprehension. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.