The first proof I had of the value commercially of my new friend's help was that coming in contact with so many people at the library, he recommended me as a picture-framer in season and out. Anyhow he got me work, which, whether it paid or not, was what I ardently desired. For while I was _doing_ something I was, as Kipling says, swallowed up in the clean joy of creation, and nothing else then mattered very much to me. So gradually customers began to flow in, very gradually it is true, but they _did_ come, and although my gains were small I made many good friends who did their best to recommend me to others. I had a workshop on the first floor which was a chosen haunt of my intimates, who, their work being done, used to come and perch amidst the unpicturesque litter and watch me at work, preferring apparently to be there in thirsty discomfort to being in the local saloon bar. But how they did smoke! We had a varied compound of odours up there, boiling glue, sour paste and general dustiness, but the whole rank compound was leavened, and I think purified, by tobacco smoke, diligently emitted by my friends as they watched me at work. The curious part of these gatherings was that I had nothing to offer these guests, no refreshment, either wet or dry. I was far too poor for that. Not that any of them ever seemed to expect anything but a precarious seat on the edge of a box, or even standing room. They brought their own tobacco and talked and smoked while I worked, and when at last the job was finished and I had to say, "Now, you fellows must clear out, I've got to take this job home," they would go reluctantly--except occasionally that some of them would insist upon lending me a hand with my load to the door of the house that I was bound to. Ah, it was a strenuous time and full of worries, but I know now that it had its own peculiar charm and value, also a certain zest which I shall never know again. Noble sportsmen spend huge sums and risk life and limb hunting game, I was gambling with my health and strength for an elusive stake, and, generally speaking, the odds were against me. And what made the venture of more intense interest was of course the helpless dependents. These made it impossible for me to halt even if, as often happened, I lost heart. It must be a good thing to be compelled to go on, it often makes a hero out of quite an ordinary person, raising him to heights of effort of which he never dreamed himself capable. All the more honour therefore to those, who, without these incentives, press forward to their goal in defiance of every hindrance.