Arkwright realized that he must have assistance in order to put his machines on the market. He applied to a Mr. Atherton, and the latter, although he considered the venture a hazardous one, sent him two workmen to help in building his first machine. When this was finished Arkwright went with it to Preston, and there set up his spinning-frame and began to use it in a room of the house that belonged to the Free Grammar School. His experiments convinced him of its success. Then he thought how he could best introduce his machine with least risk of rousing the popular fury. John Smalley, a liquor merchant and painter, had helped him build his machine, and after consultation, the two men decided to take the spinning-jenny to Nottingham, which lay in the heart of the frame-work stocking trade. [Illustration: SIR RICHARD ARKWRIGHT] Arkwright’s great opportunity lay in the fact that the manufacture of cotton hosiery had hitherto had to be carried on on a limited scale, owing to the difficulty of obtaining yarn that was sufficiently strong for the stocking-frames that were then used. At first he and John Smalley were associated with the Messrs. Wright, Nottingham bankers, but these bankers, figuring on the experience that had befallen the inventors of other spinning machines, soon withdrew their aid. But Arkwright was more fortunate in his next step. Samuel Need, a Nottingham manufacturer of stockings, and his partner, Jedediah Strutt, of Derby, who had himself invented a device for making ribbed stockings, became interested in his machine, tested it carefully, and with the experience they had already gained as practical manufacturers, decided in its favor. It was their approval that started Arkwright on the road to fortune.