This gathering together of the material that I used was one of the chief drawbacks to my progress. I could not of course lay in a stock; first, because I had no capital; secondly, because I had no room to store it; and thirdly, because, owing to the enormous variety of patterns, I could never tell what I should want a stock of. Of course I early learned to guide my client's taste in the direction of the easily obtainable (and profitable to me) patterns for obvious reasons, but if a customer had seen a certain pattern and required it, I never tried to persuade him out of it, but did my very best to satisfy him. Here I found another enormous difficulty. I did not know what to charge! There was no one of whom I dared ask the question, for it will be quite easily understood that in all trades there must be intense jealousy and dislike of an outsider coming in by a side entrance and cutting into the business. I got some help from the price-lists of the great stores, finding that I could make a very respectable profit, as I considered it, by charging about twenty-five per cent. less than they did. But that only helped me a little way, because I was continually confronted by the cheap frames made by the gross and sold by the drapers and fancy goods people at a few pence and some farthings each, less in fact than I could buy the materials for in the making of one frame. So I groped blindly along, sometimes making a fair profit on my labour, sometimes after two or three days' hard work emerging with about what I started with because of unforeseen difficulties. I may have undersold the legitimate operators in the same line, but if so it was entirely due to ignorance on my part--I would never willingly spoil any man's market, unless of course as in some monopolies prices needed reduction in the interests of truth and honesty.