This kind of business gave me great satisfaction, for I always had a desire to work at clocks.

In 1807, when I was fourteen years old, I proposed to my guardian to get me a place with Mr.Eli Terry, of Plymouth, to work at them.

Mr.Terry was at that time making more clocks than any other man in the country, about two hundred in a year, which was thought to be a great number.
My guardian, a good old man, told me that there was so many clocks then making, that the country would soon be filled with them, and the business would be good for nothing in two or three years.

This opinion of that wise man made me feel very sad.

I well remember, when I was about twelve years old, what I heard some old gentleman say, at a training, (all of the good folks in those days were as sure to go to training as to attend church,) they were talking about Mr.Terry; the foolish man they said, had begun to make two hundred clocks; one said, he never would live long enough to finish them; another remarked, that if he did he never would, nor could possibly sell so many, and ridiculed the very idea.
I was a little fellow, but heard and swallowed every word those wise men said, but I did not relish it at all, for I meant some day to make clocks myself, if I lived.
What would those good old men have thought when they were laughing at and ridiculing Mr.Terry, if they had known that the little urchin who was so eagerly listening to their conversation would live to make _Two Hundred Thousand_ metal clocks in one year, and _many millions_ in his life.