“I remember, as if it were yesterday,” said Sir Thomas, “how utterly
hopeless my financial condition seemed to be when I was a boy of
fifteen in New York. I had run away from home to see the world. My
experiences were anything but pleasant, without work as I was, a
stranger in a great city. I got used to living on a few cents a day,
but when it came to such a pinch that I couldn’t buy a five-cent
stamp to carry a letter to the old folks in Glasgow, I very nearly
gave up. I really think that decided me to go back. It accentuated my
homesickness. I thought of the prodigal son. I borrowed five cents for
that letter, and resolved to get back as soon as a chance offered. I
can tell you I was glad when I once more set foot on the other side.
I had refrained from telling my people how hard up I had been. This
was largely a matter of pride with me, but another consideration was
their feelings. I would do anything rather than distress them. So I
stepped up, on my arrival, as jauntily as you ever saw a lad, and when
a proposition was made to me by my father, soon after my home-coming,
to set me up in a small grocery, I jumped at the chance.”
“Was that the beginning of your fortune?”
“Yes. I made money from the start. I put in practice what I had seen
abroad,—such as displaying goods attractively in windows, keeping the
place as neat as a pin, and waiting personally on my customers. Every
dollar that I earned I saved,—not that I really loved money myself.
That was not my inspiration,—it was my father and mother.”