An apprenticeship of six years at the bench would have made an educated workman of him: as it was, he pottered at every mechanical pursuit as a gentleman amateur in a laboratory and workshop which he had got built for himself in his park.

In this magazine of toys--for such it virtually was at first--he satisfied his itchings to play with tools and machines.

He was no sportsman; but if he saw in a shop window the most trumpery patent improvement in a breechloader, he would go in and buy it; and as to a new repeating rifle or liquefied gas gun, he would travel to St.
Petersburg to see it.

He wrote very little; but he had sixteen different typewriters, each guaranteed perfect by an American agent, who had also pledged himself that the other fifteen were miserable impostures.

A really ingenious bicycle or tricycle always found in him a ready purchaser; and he had patented a roller skate and a railway brake.