..I'm whelmed. But there he Was:

Repairing someone else's work! (not so trivially as here) via voluntary labour, usually of complex kind.
Whatever the 'theys' ever paid him, (and upon my having read of those adventures)
My cumulative guess is, that he was never 'paid' ... what he was Worth: by the clueless or the well-aware.
(Ingratitude is as Murican as the rest of that list.)