I had no idea of the gravity of my offence. It was the first time since I was a child that I had been ordered to do or not to do anything, and I had no conception of orders except as given by myself. If there was any risk, I assumed it gaily, quite unconscious how such a daredevil defiance of authority would appear to an Englishman. Mr. Clark showed me my location, and gave me an order for my engine-bed to be brought in immediately, and also other parts of the engine as soon as they arrived. Trucks generally, I was told, had to wait in the crowd about ten days for their turn to be unloaded. [Illustration: CHARLES T. PORTER A.D. 1862] I hurry over the time of erection. Everything arrived promptly and the whole came together without a hitch, as I knew it would. The fly-wheel and pulley and cylinder lagging I had left to be made in England. I was at the works of Easton, Amos & Sons every morning at 6 o’clock, and laid out the work for the day. I made the gauges for boring the fly-wheel and pulley, which I had now learned how to do, and adjusted everything about the engine myself, and knew it was right. I had a talk with the foreman of the pattern-shop about the best thickness of felt on the cylinder to be covered by the mahogany lagging, in the course of which I remarked, “It is the air that is the real non-conductor.” “Yes,” he replied, “and felt, you know, _is_ ‘air’.” I learned several things I did not know before, among others how the English made a steam-pipe joint, using parallel threads and a backing-up nut, packed with long hemp which was filled with a putty made of red and white lead rubbed together dry. I had great luck in the way of a driving-belt. An American exhibitor of india-rubber belting asked the privilege of exhibiting a belt in use on my engine, which I was glad enough to have him do. Otherwise I hardly know what I should have done. The widest English belts were 12 inches wide, double, and sewn together from end to end with five rows of sheepskin lacing. The belt ran on the knobs of this lacing. English machinists then knew nothing of the hold of belts by excluding the air. The ends of all belts were united by lapping them about two feet and sewing them through and through with this same lacing. Fine pounding these joints would have made on the pulleys. I got a governor belt from him also. Both belts were united by butt-joints laced in the American fashion. I did this job myself, and, indeed, I put the whole engine together mostly with my own hands, although Easton, Amos & Sons sent two of their best fitters to help me. I learned afterwards that I should have had a sorry time driving my governor by a belt laced in the English way.