His figure precluded him from following his father's profession, and waiting upon the British nobility, who naturally require large and handsome men to skip up behind their rolling carriages, and hand their plates at dinner.

When John James was six years old his father remarked, with tears in his eyes, he wasn't higher than a plate-basket.

The boys jeered at him in the streets--some whopped him, spite of his diminutive size.

At school he made but little progress.
He was always sickly and dirty, and timid and crying, whimpering in the kitchen away from his mother; who, though she loved him, took Mr.
Ridley's view of his character, and thought him little better than an idiot until such time as little Miss Cann took him in hand, when at length there was some hope of him.
"Half-witted, you great stupid big man," says Miss Cann, who had a fine spirit of her own.

"That boy half-witted! He has got more wit in his little finger than you have in all your great person! You are a very good man, Ridley, very good-natured I'm sure, and bear with the teasing of a waspish old woman: but you are not the wisest of mankind.