An Historical Note. 
323 
and it was therefore necessary to set up the engine with no 
other guidance than was furnished by numbers in red paint 
upon the different parts. It is far from strange that the work¬ 
men in such an unknown field of labor, without any of the 
special facilities now furnished for such work, made many er¬ 
rors, and were often forced to remove parts already correctly 
adjusted in order to place other parts requiring earlier places. 
But their efforts were finally successful, and the engine was in 
working order upon the arrival of its engineer. It was, then, 
not strange that when a second engine was imported, it was 
thought practicable to intrust it to a Yankee engineer, es¬ 
pecially since the English engineer was at hand to initiate his 
fellow into the new work. This, however, “Engineer Number 
One” considered entirely impracticable, declaring that the en¬ 
gine would certainly fail of success under an unskilled Ameri¬ 
can, but kindly offering to send across the ocean and get a 
friend of his own to accept the position. The management, 
however, had confidence in their employee’s mechanical ability, 
and, persisting in their plan, the English engineer was obliged 
to assent although with many doleful prophecies of evil. And 
surely enough the troubles came, and frequently was it found 
necessary to call for the assistance of the first engineer before 
the new engine would do its duty. He came readily enough 
when needed, although with many an “ I told you so, ” but he 
avoided telling his fellow engineer where the difficulties lay, as¬ 
cribing the trouble to a general lack of ability to keep the en¬ 
gine in order, a theory apparently borne out by the numerous 
changes and adjustments made here and there before he declared 
the engine in sound condition. This unsatisfactory state con¬ 
tinued until the managers were almost ready to yield to the 
supposed need of English skill. The American engineer, how¬ 
ever, had not been entirely unobserving, while the Englishman 
had been skilfully concealing his real changes in the adjust¬ 
ment and readjustment of other parts by useless motions, but 
was sure that he had found where the difficulty lay. So, when 
one morning he found a mal-adjustment of a part of his engine 
which he knew was in place when he left it the night before, 
the cause of his trouble became clear to his mind. But h& 
