The workmen,
however, had ridiculed his suggestions, and had denounced as the most
barefaced presumption his belief that he could improve a machine which
had come all the way from Connecticut, where, they said, people were
supposed to know something about clocks. Nevertheless, he maintained his
opinions, and told his employer that if he would give him the silver
watch, he would invent a much better machine. His offer was accepted,
and in ten days he produced a machine, not only much simpler than the
old one, but capable of performing twice as much and better work. The
workmen promptly acknowledged his success, and his employer gave him the
watch. "The old watch," said he, a few years ago, "has ticked all my
children into existence, and three of them out of this world. It still
hangs at the head of my bed."
About this time, in a chance visit to the Museum in Cincinnati, he saw a
plaster cast of Houdon's "Washington." It was the first bust he had ever
seen, and he says it moved him strangely. He had an intense desire to
know how it was done, and a vague consciousness that he could do work of
the same kind if he could find an instructor.
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