Though Watt had become very reserved, especially to strangers, about his inventions, he could not altogether keep from the knowledge of his workmen the contrivances on which his thoughts were occupied. He was under the necessity of employing them to make patterns after his drawings, from which any ingenious man might readily apprehend what he was aiming at. The Soho workmen were naturally curious about the new inventions and adaptations which Watt was constantly producing, and these usually formed the subject of conversation at their by-hours. While the model of the crank engine was under construction at Soho in the summer of 1780, a number of the workmen met one Saturday evening, according to custom, to drink together at the “Waggon and Horses,” a little old-fashioned, low-roofed, roadside public-house, still standing in the village of Handsworth. The men were seated round the little kitchen-parlour, talking about their work, and boasting, as men will do over their beer, of the new and wonderful things which they were carrying forward in the shops. Dick Cartwright, the pattern maker, was one of the loudest of the party. He was occupied upon a model for the purpose of producing rotary motion, which he declared would prove one of the best things Mr. Watt had ever brought out. The other men were curious to know all about it, and to illustrate the action of the machine, Cartwright proceeded to make a rude sketch of the crank upon the wooden table with a bit of chalk. A person who sat in the kitchen corner in the assumed garb of a workman, drank in greedily all that the men had been saying; for there were many eavesdroppers constantly hanging about Soho, some for the purpose of picking up surreptitious information, and others to decoy away skilled workmen who were in the secrets of the manufacture. Watt himself had never thought of taking out a patent for the crank, not believing it to be patentable; but the stranger aforesaid had no such hesitation, and it is said he posted straight to London and anticipated Watt by securing a protection for the contrivance.[204] [204] The invention was patented by James Pickard, a Birmingham button-maker, on the 23rd August, 1780 (No. 1263). Matthew Washborough of Bristol arranged with Pickard for employing it in the engine invented by him for securing circular motion. Washborough’s own patent has no reference to the crank, though he is usually named as the inventor of it.