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of the lecturers, whom he
teased sadly by protesting against injustice the moment it peeped out,
by teaching all the good young men to smoke prodigiously, by
scattering revolutionary verses about the college, and finally by
collecting and burning in one grand bonfire every copy of an obnoxious
text-book under which the students had long suffered."
This was indeed the germ of the man as we all knew him long
afterwards.
Runciman left the college to take up the mastership of a London Board
School in a low part of Deptford; and here he soon gained an
extraordinary influence over the population of one of the worst slums
in London. Mr. Thomas Wright, the "Journeyman Engineer," has
already told in print elsewhere the story of Runciman's descent into the
depths of Deptford, how he set about humanising the shoeless, starving,
conscience-little waifs who were drafted into his school, and how,
before many months had passed, he never walked through the squalid
streets of his own quarter without two or three loving little fellows all
in tatters trying to touch the hem of his garment, while a group of the
more timid followed him admiringly afar off. From the children, his
good influence extended to the parents; and it was an almost every-day
occurrence for visitors from the slums to burst into the school to fetch
the master to some coster who was "a-killin' his woman." The brawny
young giant would dive into the courts where the police go in couples,
clamber ricketty stairs, and "interview" the fighting pair. "His plan was
to appeal to the manliness of the offender, and make him ashamed of
himself; often such a visit ended in a loan, whereby the 'barrer' was
replenished and the surly husband set to work; but if all efforts at
peacemaking were useless, this new apostle had methods beyond the
reach of the ordinary missionary--he would (the case deserving it) drop
his mild, insinuating, persuasive tones, and not only threaten to pulp the
incorrigible blackguard into a jelly, but proceed to do it."
Runciman, however, was much more in fibre than a mere schoolmaster.
He worked hard at his classes by day; he worked equally hard by night
at his own education, and at his first attempts at journalism. He

matriculated at London University, and passed his first B.Sc.
examination. At one and the same time he was carrying on his own
school, in the far East End, contributing largely to an educational paper,
The Teacher, and writing two or three pages a week in Vanity Fair,
which he long sub-edited. His powers of work were enormous, and he
systematically overtaxed them.
It is not surprising that, under this strain and stress, even that
magnificent physique showed signs of breaking down, like every other
writer's. A long holiday on the Mediterranean, and another at Torquay,
restored him happily to his wonted health; but he saw he must now
choose between schoolmastering and journalism. To run the two
abreast was too much, even for James Runciman's gigantic powers.
Permanent work on Vanity Fair being offered to him on his return, he
decided to accept it; and thenceforth he plunged with all the strength
and ardour of his fervid nature into his new profession.
"It was during this period of insatiable greed for work," says the
correspondent of a Nottingham journal, "that I first knew him. You
may wonder how he could possibly get through the tasks which he set
himself. You would not wonder if you had seen him, when he was in
the humour, tramp round the room and pour out a stream of talk on
men and books which might have gone direct into print at a high
marketable value. The London correspondent of a Nottingham paper
says that Runciman was justly vain of the speed of his pen. That is true.
He considered that a journalist ought to be able to dictate an article at
the rate of 150 words a minute to a shorthand writer. I doubt whether
anybody can do that, but Runciman certainly thought he could. He
loved to settle a thing off on the instant with one huge effort. Here is an
authentic story that shows his method. It is a physical performance, but
he tackled journalistic obstacles in the same spirit:
"A parent, who fancied he had a grievance, burst furiously into the
schoolroom one day, and startled its quietness with a string of oaths.
'That isn't how we talk here,' said Runciman, in his quiet way. 'Will you
step into my room if you have anything to discuss?' Another volley of
oaths was the reply, and the unwary parent added that he wasn't going
out, and nobody could put him out. Runciman was not the man to allow
such a challenge of his