"You like helping people?"
He pondered this longer than she thought it deserved.
"I believe I like straightening things out. It jars me to see any one in trouble when there's a way of getting over it; and I hate to see effort wasted and tools unfit for work."
"Efficiency is your ideal, then?"
"Yes. I don't know that it ever struck me before, but you have hit it. All the same, efficiency is hard to attain."
Beatrice looked at him curiously.
"I don't believe you are really a carpenter," she said.
"Unless you have plenty of money when you start breaking prairie, you have to be a number of things," he answered, smiling. "Difficulties keep cropping up, and they must be attacked."
"Without previous knowledge or technical training?"
He gave her a quick, appreciative glance.