Three generations

MY EDITORS 257
Later, I was asked to become a contributor to the
Cornhill, and I think another short story of mine
appeared under Thackeray's brief reign. I wrote
occasionally to the magazine under the editorship of
Leslie Stephen, and I had a long story in it when
James Payn held the reins. I wrote more continu-
ously to Good Words and the Sunday Magazine,
when Norman McLeod was the editor of the one,
and Dr. Guthrie and Dr. Blaikie were jointly, and in
succession, editors of the other.
After Robert's prolonged apprenticeship to a firm
of mechanical engineers, he had the benefit of the
guidance of an eminent mining engineer in connection
with my father's coal-pits, which my brother was
accustomed to go down, one foot in the loop of a
rope, from early boyhood. He was swept into civil
engineering in the great railway year. He was one
of the leaders with theodolites accompanied by satel-
lites carrying chains, tramping the length and breadth
of the land, planning the new iron roads which were
to be laid down here and there and everywhere, and
were to change the whole character of the country.
Then followed rushes to London to be examined
before committees of the House of Commons as to
the advisability of granting a Bill for this or that line.
On the first morning of awakening in London after
one of the earliest of these rushes, Robert went out to
take his share of the sights. The one which drew
him comparatively before everything else was not
Westminster Abbey, nor the Houses of Parliament ;
not St. Paul's, nor Buckingham Palace, nor the Tower.
It was the Thames Tunnel, then regarded as a feat of
engineering. He scouted the services of cabs, or a
bus, a map, or a guide-book. He reached his goal by
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