" . . . I went with a heavy heart to one more watchmaker, and looked on
while he took her to pieces. Then I prepared to cross-question him rigidly,
for this thing was getting serious. The watch had cost two hundred dollars
originally, and I seemed to have paid out two or three thousand for repairs.
While I waited and looked on I presently recognized in this watchmaker an
old acquaintance -- a steamboat engineer of other days, and not a good
engineer, either. He examined all the parts carefully, just as the other
watchmakers had done, and then delivered his verdict with the same
confidence of manner. He said: "She makes too much steam -- you want to hang
the monkey-wrench on the safety valve!" I brained him on the spot, and had
him buried at my own expense.
My uncle William (now deceased, alas!) used to say that a good horse
was a good horse until it had run away once, and that a good watch was a
good watch until the repairers got a chance at it. And he used to wonder
what became of all the unsuccessful tinkerers, and gunsmiths, and
shoemakers, and engineers, and blacksmiths; but nobody could ever tell him."

from Mark Twain's "My Watch, An Instructive Little Tale"

Scout


"James Johnson" wrote
One of the most dangerous things there was an engineer with a little
experience.