In divination
Work, employment, commission, craftsmanship, skill in craft and business, perhaps in the preparatory stage.
Reversed: Voided ambition, vanity, cupidity, exaction, usury. It may also signify the possession of skill, in the sense of the ingenious mind turned to cunning and intrigue.
The library's note
An artist in stone works steadily, his finished pieces already displayed nearby as trophies of the craft. Waite reads the scene plainly as labor still building toward mastery, "work, employment, commission, craftsmanship," "perhaps in the preparatory stage," the same trade the Three showed already rewarded, caught here one stage earlier in its own apprenticeship. Pentacles' material concern, across these two linked cards, traces a single craftsman's progress rather than two separate fortunes.