LOCUTIUS IN FABRICA. 



By Gilbert M. Tucker. 



In an office-building which I occasionally visit, is a dingy little 

 room occupied as a shop by one of those useful men who can turn 

 their hands to almost any mechanical task, from repairing a fine clock 

 to building a cow-shed, and do it well. To the casual observer, the 

 place is far from beautiful, and has a " cluttered-up " appearance sug- 

 gestive of habits the reverse of orderly. The floor — where not occu- 

 pied by benches, lathes, horses, and a rusty stove surmounted by a 

 glue-kettle — is nearly concealed by bits of timber, shavings, and mis- 

 cellaneous debris. The walls are lined with shelves and racks of many 

 shapes, sizes and colors, obviously put up at different times, and con- 

 structed of odds and ends, with no thought of symmetry or harmony 

 in their arrangement. And when one examines the tools them- 

 selves, they are found to form a collection almost equally promis- 

 cuous. No two have handles alike or look as if they came from the 

 same maker. They are disposed in rude stands, boxes and cases of 

 irregular forms, which seem to have been hastily adapted to their pres- 

 ent purpose in default of anything better. Nothing could be more 

 unlike the finely finished and ingeniously arranged "gentlemen's tool 

 chests " that fascinate the eye of mechanically disposed visitors in hard- 

 Yet the occupant of this little shop can lay his hand in a moment 

 on any article in it, by day or by night, and knows the contents as you 

 know the alphabet. And when he puts any implement into service, 

 it is found to answer its purpose to very perfection. The chisels cut 

 like razors ; the saws follow the line without the deflection of a hair- 

 breadth; the lathes run exactly true; the vises and clamps hold like a 



