“Yes. And the other day I went to the Mint and saw a lot. Mr. Hale, the gentleman I met at the Custom House, gave me a card. It’s funny, Mundon, how different everything there looked to me from the last time I was there. Every schoolboy in this town goes, and of course I went; but it didn’t seem to me that I could be the same boy who’d been there. Everything interested me so much more this time.” Mundon had been marking a circle in the center of the floor. “Now, Ben,” he said, “we’re ready for the corner-stone, and you’re the proper person to lay it. You just git one of those bricks and put it here.” He struck the center of the circle a blow with his spade. “I didn’t know you could corner a circle,” said Ben, as he placed a brick upon the spot indicated. “You kin corner anythin’, if you only find out how to do it. There,” he added, with satisfaction, “the first brick’s laid. Now, she’ll go a-hummin’!” “Let me help you,” said Ben. “It’s more interesting than building the mule-shed. I can fix that by-and-by.” “All right.” Mundon watched Ben lay the bricks. “How clumsy I am!” the latter exclaimed when the bricks refused to lie evenly. “I’ve often watched bricklayers at work. It looks as easy as breathing; but it isn’t,--not by a long sight!” “It’s a trade,” Mundon laconically remarked. “Then you must be Jack of them all,” said Ben, “for there’s nothing you can’t do.” “I’ve ben in most of ’em. It’s mean to try to do things when you don’t know how. Sometimes, a job I wasn’t used to would take a powerful long time; though in the first stages, I thought I was workin’ mighty fast--a reg’lar lightnin’-striker.” “Of course, anything that isn’t regular work takes longer.” “Exactly. The more you work at a thing, the more skillful you git. Sometimes, when I’d git through with a new worrisome job, I’d wonder what I’d better tackle next. And ’t would always remind me of a story my mother used to tell ’bout a tailor who was a powerful slow worker, but thought he was lightnin’. He took a whole week to make a vest, and then said, ‘What’ll I fly at next?’” During the following two weeks the partners were very busy. The arastra was finished and the furnace in readiness for the precious metals. Lastly, a pile of soot, brickdust, and mortar, representing a part of the lining of the chimney, and a retort and some quicksilver awaited the trial. A fairly good sleeping-room, with a tiny galley adjoining, made the place comfortable. Mundon proved to be a good cook, and Ben was fond of watching him at his culinary labors. The kitchen was constructed like the galley of a ship, and, when the cook was seated, everything was within his reach. “I’ve been camping out in vacations,” Ben remarked; “but this beats that all to pieces.”