What did you charge him for if you didn't do anything?

I'm confused. He brought you a mower to have some unspecified work performed. What did he ask you to do? Was the cable already on the mower but just not hooked up? Unless he asked you to connect the cable that sounds like mis-communication when the mower was taken in.

The machine was brought in by a mutual friend, although i had never met the owner. The air filter was plugged solid, so i replaced it. The general condition of the whole thing, and the apparent age of it, didn't inspire me with any ideas of good treatment.
An aftermarket throttle handle was installed on the handle-bars, not tight, just flopping around. The owner installed throttle cable was 12 inches too long, and was NOT connected to the throttle lever! The cable end was not hooked into the lever of the throttle handle. Just slid over it, but not hooked by the normal flat z end on the cable. (You must have experience with those cables, to understand what i mean by the description of the upper end of the cable configuration. (Try to explain, to those who are ignorant of what i am describing, in laymans language, and because i never was told what that bend/hook on the end of the cable was called!)
Any way, i found a good cable of the correct length, installed it, along with a better control handle, and now the cable stays in the eye of the handle, and stays connected to the throttle lever, which i couldn't see, because it had been bent down to a perpendicular position, above and behind the air filter assembly!
Is that enough information for you nit-pickers to chew on tonight? SHEESH! Rustyj

Sounds to me like the guy had a mower with a fixed speed engine, and wanted to add a throttle control to it and couldn't figure it out on his own. Many of the fixed speed tecumseh and briggs engines have no provisions for an external throttle cable. To add this feature, you'd need the mechanism from a engine of the same series that had a provision for a throttle control.

Seems to me that you did your job by performing the maintenance it (sorely) needed and getting it up and running.

Too bad you can't slap on the old air filter and put old oil back in the crankcase!

Well, we got it all figured out yesterday. After i bent the throttle lever back into place, and installed a different cable, that worked, he was satisfied. He didn't know how the throttle lever got bent down to a hiding position. I think it was caused by somebody who knew nothing much about those older models. (not me!)

Glad you got it all sorted out!