uld be dangerous as well as inconvenient.

At this point of his narrative the old gentleman showed a number of old
hammers, such as were in use before he began to improve the instrument;
and it was plain that men had tried very hard before him to overcome
this difficulty.

One hammer had an iron rod running down through the handle with a nut
screwed on at the end. Another was wholly composed of iron, the head and
handle being all of one piece. There were various other devices, some of
which were exceedingly clumsy and awkward.

At last, he hit upon an improvement which led to his being able to put a
hammer upon a handle in such a way that it would stay there. He made
what is called an adze-handled hammer, the head being attached to the
handle after the manner of an adze.

The improvement consists in merely making _a longer hole_ for the handle
to go into, by which device it has a much firmer hold of the head, and
can easily be made extremely tight.

With this improvement, if the handle is well seasoned and well wedged,
there is no danger of the head flying off. He made some other changes,
all of them merely for his own convenience, without a thought of going
into the manufacture of hammers.

The neighborhood in which he lived would have scarcely required half a
dozen new hammers per annum. But one day there came to the village six
carpenters to work upon a new church, and one of these men, having left
his hammer at home, came to David Maydole's blacksmith's shop to get
one made.

"Make me as good a hammer," said the carpenter, "as you know how."

That was touching David upon a tender place.

"As good a one as I know how?" said he. "But perhaps you don't want to
pay for as good a one as I know how to make."

"Yes, I do," replied the man; "I want a good hammer."

The blacksmith made him one of his best. It was probably the best hammer
that had ever been made in the world, since it contained two or three
important improvements never before combined in the instrument.

The carpenter was delighted with it, and showed it, with a good deal of
exultation, to his five companions; every man of whom came the next day
to the shop and wanted one just like it. They did not understand all the
blacksmith's notions about tempering and mixing the metals, but they saw
at a glance that the head and the handle were so united that there never
was likely to be any divorce between them.

To a carpenter building a wooden house, t