Mr. Shull was a short, round man, with a beard which was beginning to show gray under the lip. His reception-room manners were urbane and persuasive to a degree, and he particularly excelled in convincing people that the portraits of themselves, which Marsena had sent down to him in the dummy to be dried and varnished, and which they hated vehemently at first sight, were really unique and precious works of art. He had also much success in inducing country folks to despise the cheap ferrotype which they had intended to have made, and to venture upon the costlier ambrotype, daguerreotype, or even photograph instead. If they did not go away with a family album or an assortment of frames that would come in handy as well, it was no fault of his.
He made these frames himself, on a bench which he had fitted up in the work-room. Here he constructed show-cases, too, cut out mats and mounts, and did many other things as adjuncts to the business, which honest Marsena had never dreamed of.
“Yes,” he went on now, “I carried a chain for Dwight the best part o’ one whole summer, when he was layin’ levels for that Nedahma Valley Railroad they were figurin’ on buildin’. Guess they ruther let him in over that job--though he paid me fair enough. It ain’t much of a business, that surveyin’. You spend about half your time in findin’ out for people the way they could do things if they only had the money to do ’em, and the other half in settlin’ miserable farmers’ squabbles about the boundaries of their land. You’ve got to pay a man day’s wages for totin’ round your chain and axe and stakes--and, as like as not, you never get even that money back, let alone any pay for yourself. I know something about a good many trades, and I say surveyin’ is pretty nigh the poorest of ’em all.”
“George Washington was a surveyor,” commented the boy, stooping down to his task once more.
“Yes,” admitted Mr. Shull; “so he was, for a fact. But then he had influence enough to get government jobs. I don’t say there ain’t money in that. If Dwight, now, could get a berth on the canal, say, it ’ud be a horse of another color. They say, there’s some places there that pay as much as $3 a day. That’s how George Washington got his start, and, besides, he owned his own house and lot to begin with. But you’ll take notice that he dropped surveyin’ like a hot potato the minute there was any soldierin’ to do. He knew which side _his_ bread was buttered on!”