* * * * *

But let’s get down to the art itself.

Mr. Scrimshaw’s first bit of advice is very sound.  “The bricklayer should first take a keen glance at the scaffolding upon which he is to work, to see that there is nothing broken or dangerous connected with it....  This is essential, because more important than anything else to him is the preservation of his life and limb.”

Oh, Mr. Scrimshaw, how true that is!  If I were a bricklayer I would devote practically my whole morning inspecting the scaffolding on which I was to work.  Whatever else I shirked, I would put my whole heart and soul into this part of my task.  Every rope should be tested, every board examined, and I doubt if even then I would go up on the scaffold.  Any bricks that I could not lay with my feet on terra firma (there is a joke somewhere about terra cotta, but I’m busy now) could be laid by some one else.

* * * * *

But we don’t seem to be getting ahead in our instruction in practical bricklaying.  Well, all right, take this: 

“Pressed bricks, which are buttered, can be laid with a one-eighth-inch joint, although a joint of three-sixteenths of an inch is to be preferred.”

Joe, get this gentleman a joint of three-sixteenths of an inch, buttered.  Service, that’s our motto!

* * * * *

It takes a book like this to make a man realize what he misses in his everyday life.  For instance, who would think that right here in New York there were people who specialized in corbeling?  Rain or shine, hot or cold, you will find them corbeling around like Trojans.  Or when they are not corbeling they may be toothing. (I too thought that this might be a misprint for “teething,” but it is spelled “toothing” throughout the book, so I guess that Mr. Scrimshaw knows what he is about.) Of all departments of bricklaying I should think that it would be more fun to tooth than to do anything else.  But it must be tiring work.  I suppose that many a bricklayer’s wife has said to her neighbor, “I am having a terrible time with my husband this week.  He is toothing, and comes home so cross and irritable that nothing suits him.”

Another thing that a bricklayer has to be careful of, according to the author (and I have no reason to contest his warning), is the danger of stepping on spawls.  If there is one word that I would leave with the young bricklayer about to enter his trade it is “Beware of the spawls, my boy.”  They are insidious, those spawls are.  You think you are all right and then—­pouf!  Or maybe “crash” would be a better descriptive word.  Whatever noise is made by a spawl when stepped on is the one I want.  Perhaps “swawk” would do.  I’ll have to look up “spawl” first, I guess.

Well, anyway, there you have practical bricklaying in a nutshell.  Of course there are lots of other points in the book and some dandy pictures and it would pay you to read it.  But in case you haven’t time, just skim over this resume again and you will have the gist of it.