[CHAPTER I.]
IN WHICH PHIL MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE OF MR. LEONIDAS LYNCHPINNE.
"What do you think you shall do for a living, Phil Farringford, when you arrive at St. Louis?" asked Mr. Gracewood, as we sat on the hurricane deck of a Missouri River steamer.
"I don't care much what I do, if I can only get into some mechanical business," I replied. "I want to learn a trade. I don't think I'm very vain when I say that I have about half learned one now."
"Perhaps you have half learned several," added my excellent friend, with a smile. "I have no doubt you will make a good mechanic, for you are handy in the use of tools; and you have been thrown so much upon your own resources that you are full of expedients."
"I am always delighted when I have a difficult job to do. Nothing pleases me so much as to study up the means of overcoming an obstacle," I added.
"The first qualification for any pursuit is to have a taste for it. You will make a good mechanic."
"I am only afraid that after I have learned a trade, I shall not care to work at it."
"That won't do," protested Mr. Gracewood. "You mustn't keep jumping from one thing to another. Frequent change is the enemy of progress. You must not be fickle."