In about two weeks from the date of this meeting Mr. Goodfellow came into the office pale and trembling with excitement, and addressing himself to me, Mr. Merrick sitting on the opposite side of the table, said: “Mr. Porter, I give it up; we might just as well be set down in a cotton-mill to make steam-engines; there is not a tool in the place that has not spoiled every job that has been put in it, from the day we came here. I don’t believe another such lot of antiquated and worn-out rubbish exists on the face of the earth.” This was not news to me, as I had spent much of my time in the shop. Our most serious disappointment was the condition of their great planer; we had hurried the above-mentioned engine bed on it as soon as it arrived, and when it had been planed the surface plate was laid on the guide-bars, which were 7 feet 6 inches long, and it was found to rock on two diagonal corners more than an eighth of an inch, showing a cross-wind of over half an inch in the whole length of the planer bed; this of course rendered the tool useless in its present condition. I had found that the means for boring the 40-inch cylinder and for finishing the shaft, as well as for doing the other work for this engine, were all equally useless, and I proposed to Mr. Merrick that these parts should all be sent back to the shops from which they had been brought and finished there, and the engine altogether built in outside shops, just as I had built the first one. This he flatly refused to do, saying he would not make such an exposure of our condition. Our plight may be understood when I state that it was over a year before we could deliver that first large engine, although every effort was made to complete it, the castings and forgings waiting for many months. “But,” exclaims the reader, “why, when this state of affairs was first discovered, were not steps instantly taken to remedy it?” The answer to this question involves a very different subject. When I had received in Newark a letter from Mr. Merrick requesting me to send on my patents for examination by an expert, I was suddenly reminded that I had omitted to obtain the reissue of the latest patent which Mr. Allen had obtained, namely, the one for his adjustable pressure-plate, which had been so shockingly muddled by the Washington agent of the patent solicitors that when we received it we could not understand the specification, and the claims were absolutely meaningless. However, I had said to myself, there will be time enough to have it reissued when it becomes necessary, as applications for reissue are always passed upon immediately. But before sending the patents on, I prepared myself a new and clear specification for that patent and put it in my pocket.