Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 4).djvu/479

 story is told of his knack from his earliest days of facing and overcoming difficulties. As a lad he is said to have applied to Mr. Boulton, of the firm of Boulton and Watt, for a job. Poor as he was, he could afford to leave nothing undone which might assist his chances of carrying his point. He was told that on approaching the great man it was proper to wear a "top" hat. But he possessed no such thing. That, however, was a detail. He made a lathe, secured a block of wood, and turned a wooden hat out of it. Holding this strangest of headgear in his hand, he respectfully solicited work, and the reason he was not shown the door as relentlessly as were most of the unfortunates who came on a similar errand, was that Mr. Boulton caught sight of the wooden hat, and asked what it was. Young Murdoch's account of how he had made it, not unnaturally, straightway convinced Mr. Boulton that one who possessed such resolution was likely to do great things, and repay a hundredfold any help that might be given him. The lad was engaged, and lived