14. A Turnpike Road
‘We be thinking of coming to London ourselves soon,’ said Sol, a carpenter and joiner by trade, as he walked along at Christopher’s left hand. ‘There’s so much more chance for a man up the country. Now, if you was me, how should you set about getting a job, sir?’
‘What can you do?’ said Christopher.
‘Well, I am a very good staircase hand; and I have been called neat at sash-frames; and I can knock together doors and shutters very well; and I can do a little at the cabinet-making. I don’t mind framing a roof, neither, if the rest be busy; and I am always ready to fill up my time at planing floor-boards by the foot.’
‘And I can mix and lay flat tints,’ said Dan, who was a house painter, ‘and pick out mouldings, and grain in every kind of wood you can mention—oak, m
