Behold me then launched as a (vide my cards printed soon after) "Carver, gilder, and picture-frame maker. Clients visited at their own residences. Advice upon all art subjects gratis; estimates free!" Nevertheless I found it anything but plain sailing. At almost every turn I came up against some problem that would have given me no trouble had I served a year in a bona fide frame-maker's shop. Mostly I got over or round the difficulty somehow by myself, for I grew more and more diffident of asking for instruction at the shop where I bought my moulding and et ceteras. But I was steadily improving in my work, steadily learning more and more of the details of the business, and gradually acquiring more tools suitable for the work. It is often scornfully said to the amateur, who is lamenting his inability to do better because of the want of proper tools, that a "bad workman always blames his tools." That may be true, but it is certainly not truer than that no regular workman would attempt to commence a job with the tools that the average amateur possesses. Bad or good as the result may be, that there is any result at all from amateur work proves the possession of what all are agreed that the workman is always the better for, a love of the work for its own sake, and not at all from any hope of reward for his achievement outside of the satisfaction of his own innate desire for perfection. I was now much happier. I cannot conscientiously say that I loved the new work for its own sake, but I had never enjoyed the possession of a hobby except reading and open-air preaching, and I was as I have said far too poor to indulge my tastes even in these pursuits to the full. But I was certainly interested in pictures and their frames. I was both surprised and delighted to find that I actually had some mechanical skill after all, and I never felt quite satisfied that my work was as well done as possible. By which of course I mean that I was always striving to do it better; not only, I can safely declare, because of pleasing a customer, but for the great delight of admiring the work of my own hands before I delivered it over to its owner. Moreover, I found to my deep gratification, that my circle of acquaintances or I may say even, friends, which had been exceedingly small, was now being constantly enlarged. Nearly every new customer I obtained became interested in the man beyond his work, and this intercourse though it undoubtedly took up a great deal of time was very pleasant. Before long I was adding a few shillings regularly every week to my income, every one of which represented a great deal of work and scheming and persuasion; shillings that were well and faithfully earned, if ever shillings were. I did most of my work in the morning before going to the office, for after office hours I was handicapped by the fact that I had to go to the city to buy my mouldings and mounts, or to make long journeys with the finished product.