SUPPLEMENT TO 'MOUNT IDA CHRONICLE'.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 106, 10 March 1871, Page 1 (Supplement)

SUPPLEMENT TO 'MOUNT IDA CHRONICLE'.

MARCH 10, 1871.

instrument to another .vatchraaker. He Baid the kingbolt wan broken. I said I was glad it was nothing more serious. To tell the plain truth, I had no idea. what the kingbolt was, but I did not chooße to appear ignorant to a stranger. He repaired the kingbolt, but what the watch gained in one way it lost in another. It would run awhile and then stop awhile, and then run awhile again and bo on, using its own discretion about the intervals. And every time it went off it kicked back like a musket. I padded my breast for a few days, but finally took the watch to another watchmaker. He picked it all to pieces and turned the ruin over and over under his glass ; and then said there appeared to be something the matter with the hair trigger. He fixed it and gave it a fresh start. It did well now, except that always at ten minutes to ten the hands would shut together like a pair of scissors, and from that time forth they would travel together. The oldest man in the world could not make head or tail of the time of day by such a watch, and so I went again to have the thing repaired. This person said the crystal had got bent, and that the main spring was not straight. He also remarked that part of the works needed half-soling. He made these things all right, and then my timepiece performed unexceptionally, save that now and then, after working along quietly for nearly eight hours, everything inside would let go all of a sudden, and begin to buzz like a bee, and the hands would straightway begin to spin round and round so fast that their individuality was lost completely, and they simply seemed a delicate spider's web over the face of the watch. She would reel off the next twentyfour hours in six or seven minutes, and then stop with a bang. I went with a heavy heart to one more watchmaker, and looked on while he took it to pieces. Then I prepared to crossquestion him rigidly, for this tiling 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 recognised in this watchmaker an old acquaintance —a steamboat engineer of other days, and not a good engineer either. He examined all the parts carefully, and then delivered his verdict in the same confidential manner. He said : '"She makes too much steam —you want to hang the monkey wrench on the safety-valve |" I brained hi in on the. spot, and had him buried at my own expense. My TJnole William (now deceased, alas !) used to say that a horse was a good horse until he had run away once, and that a good watch was a good watch until the repairers had got a chance at it. And he used to wonder what had become of all the unsuccessful tinkers, and gunsmiths, and shoemakers, and blacksmiths, but no one could ever tell him. Mauk Tw.un.

A New Orleans merchant, having I struggled in vain to find a burglarproof safe, now hangs a card on door, saying to all comers, " Dou'i waste your powder, the key is in drawer." A witness in an Indian Court bcin/ interrogated as to his knowledge of defendant in the ease, said he knew intimately : " he had supped with bnn' sailed with him, and r him." "My dear," said the sentiment Mrs. Waddles, "home, you 1m v/ i:; always the dearest spot upon .■■;-, r(.V ■ "Well, yes," said the practice 11: Waddles, " it does cost me about fv.;u' as much as any other spot." " I can't speak in public; neve- oeiv such a thing in all my life," sai.i • c.li " who was called upon to hold foi U\ i other night at a public meetin." ; " l:v if anybody in the crowd will w-Uv f'."'■.' me, 111 hold his hat." I Do you think, Mr. Beeche. ' ni i one of that gentleman's lad/ ~; r i loners, 'that a little temper "i ■"■• |.-.- thing in a woman ?' < Certj.-miv I,' • madam. It is a good thing, r'-iVt .v should take care never to loss :',' An old farmer eays that r.-<. h way for a young city chap w:. ~„ to become an agriculturist, .',, ;,,. . out to some farmer for a. *.' j *.- years, and then marry a ;■■.■*' i knows how to raise chickens :■':■..: :.?■ pantaloons.