"Now for the papers," said Jack, as he straightened up after tinkering with the last machine.

But, happily, it is not one's duty to make other people uncomfortable by perpetually tinkering at that trait in them which most offends our own nature; and I thought it more for my good and hers to learn patience myself than undertake to beat her into order; the result of which was peace and good-will that vindicated my wisdom to myself; and I found her, faults and all, sufficiently fascinating and lovable.

She had led a migratory life with her sonwho was what he called a bell-hanger, but in fact a tinker of the worst gradefor many years, and was at last returned to the muckle town in a state of great destitution.

When the Tinker in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Coxcomb" says, "Come, prithee, let's shog off," what possible allusion to shaking is there, except, perhaps, to "shaking stumps"?

" "I guess you're looking for another case like your father, sitting penniless around the house, tinkering on inventions up to the day he died.

Historiographers others there be, And they, like lazars, lie by the highway-side, That for a penny or a halfpenny Will call each knave a good-fac'd gentleman, Give honour unto tinkers for good ale, Prefer a cobbler 'fore the black prince far, If he bestow but blacking on their shoes:

It is a long step from the Bedford tinker to the cultivated poet of Paradise Lost.

"Did you tell the tinker about your boss the night we were all at Robin's Inn last summer?

"Prythee tell it speedily, for I am a tinker by trade, as thou seest, and as I am in my trade I am greedy for news, even as a priest is greedy for farthings.

" From such encounters Jay-eems would creep back to the barn and seek consolation in tinkering around me.

Machine designers who have done original work will tell us that it is easier to do good work by striking out on new lines than it is to follow the work of others, or even to tinker over some of their own inventions of other years.