If you have not read the preface on the preceding pages, turn back and
read it. You will see that we have stated there that we will use no
scientific terms, but plain every day talk. It is presumed by us that
there will be more young men, wishing to become good engineers, read
this work than old engineers. We will, therefore, be all the more plain
and say as little as possible that will tend to confuse the learner, and
what we do say will be said in the same language that we would use if we
were in the field, instructing you how to handle your engine. So if the
more experienced engineer thinks we might have gone further in some
certain points, he will please remember that by so doing we might
confuse the less experienced, and thereby cover up the very point we
tried to make. And yet it is not to be supposed that we will endeavor to
make an engineer out of a man who never saw an engine. It is, therefore,
not necessary to tell the learner how an engine is made or what it looks
like. We are not trying to teach you how to build an engine, but rather
how to handle one after it is built; how to know when it is in proper
shape and how to let it alone when it is in shape. We will suppose that
you already know as much as an ordinary water boy, and just here we will
say that we have seen water haulers that were more capable of handling
the engine for which they were hauling water, than the engineer, and the
engineer would not have made a good water boy, for the reason that he
was lazy, and we want the reader to stick a pin here, and if he has any
symptoms of that complaint, don't undertake to run an engine, for a lazy
engineer will spoil a good engine, if by no other means than getting it
in the habit of loafing.