[181] Watt told Sir Walter Scott that though hundreds probably of his northern countrymen had sought employment at his establishment, he never could get one of them to become a first-rate mechanic. “Many of them,” said he, “were too good for that, and rose to be valuable clerks and bookkeepers; but those incapable of this sort of advancement had always the same insuperable aversion to toiling so long at any one point of mechanism as to gain the highest wages among the workmen.”--Note to Lockhart’s ‘Life of Scott.’ The fact, we suppose was, that the Scotch mechanics were only as yet in course of training,--the English having had a long start of them. Though Watt’s statement that Scotchmen were incapable of being first-class mechanics may have been true in his day, it is so no longer, as the workshops of the Clyde can prove; some of the most highly finished steam-engines of modern times having been turned out of Glasgow workshops. When Murdock called at Soho, in the year 1777, to ask for a job, Watt was from home, but he saw Boulton, who was usually accessible to callers of every rank. In answer to Murdock’s inquiry whether he could have a job, Boulton replied that work was rather slack with them then, and that every place was filled up. During the brief conversation that ensued, the blate young Scotchman, like most country lads in the presence of strangers, had some difficulty in knowing what to do with his hands, and unconsciously kept twirling his hat with them. Boulton’s attention was directed to the twirling hat, which seemed to be of a peculiar make. It was not a felt hat, nor a cloth hat, nor a glazed hat; but it seemed to be painted, and composed of some unusual material. “That seems to be a curious sort of hat,” said Boulton, looking at it more closely; “why, what is it made of?” “Timmer, sir,” said Murdock, modestly. “Timmer! Do you mean to say that it is made of wood?” “Yes, sir.” “Pray, _how_ was it made?” “I turned it mysel’, sir, in a bit lathey of my own making.” Boulton looked at the young man again. He had risen a hundred degrees in his estimation. He was tall, good-looking, and of open and ingenuous countenance; and that he had been able to turn a wooden hat for himself in a lathe of his own making was proof enough that he was a mechanic of no mean skill. “You may call again, my man,” said Boulton. “Thank you, sir,” said Murdock, giving his hat a final twirl.