Of course I made mistakes at starting, which cost me far more than I could afford, mistakes which I should not have made had I possessed any mechanical genius whatever. But I had what was better, an imperative necessity to succeed. You remember the story of the cow climbing the tree? It was exactly my case. There was no question of my learning to frame pictures, I had to. But for that I know should have flung down my tools and upset my glue-pot early in the game, vowing solemnly that to learn such a business was impossible at my time of life and as a side issue. But I did not, because I dared not, and after spending about six times their value in moulding, and forty times as much in hard, almost despairing work, I at last emerged from the struggle with two framed pictures. Looking back now I am amazed at even that moderate measure of success. For we only had three rooms, and I had two children. Consequently my only workshop was the apartment which served us as kitchen, dining-room, and living room. The Pembroke table, all rickety as those abominations always are, was my bench, and not infrequently capsized with all my litter of work upon it. Of the usual appliances for the work I had scarcely any. For instance I have often, to their great delight, used my two children for a press--that is to sit on the board in order to keep newly pasted down engravings or photographs from cockling up. And if when putting the back into a frame I accidentally touched the glass with the point of a brad, hearing at once the ominous click which told me I had lost sixpence, the price of the square of cheap glass, my children's hilarity was hushed in a moment as they saw the almost despairing look in my eyes, and the haggard expression on my face. But I am getting on too fast. So much depends upon the point of view, so relative are our joys or sorrows to our circumstances that I doubt whether Columbus upon first beholding that will-o'-the-wisp-like light upon San Salvador was more elate than I when I first beheld the two finished frames which were the work of mine own hands. True I had bought the moulding, and the gold or gilt slip. True I had bought the ready cut mount from another tradesman, and the squares of glass had been cut to my measurements by another, but mine was the hand that had, after much bungling and patching and besmearing of thick glue, achieved those frames. I felt that I could not weary of looking at them. Mine was the joy of creation, however lawlessly assumed. Upon rising at five the next morning, before dressing I paid a visit to them for another admiring survey, and a wondering retrospect as to whether it was really I who had succeeded in producing two such works of art. Of course I had nothing to compare them with, but that was the merest detail, it troubled me not at all.