"Trustee From the Toolroom"

What engineers read when they have the flu. Nevil Shute also reminds me of Joseph Crosby Lincoln ("The Postmaster") in his comforting old-fashionedness.

• He would .. sneak away for three or four hours to the library of the Patent Office for a period of interest and pleasure.
• Mr. Carpenter, John's solicitor, was different again, part of the wider world, John's world, infinitely competent and infinitely courteous.
• "That is the law of the land," the solicitor replied. "Dollars are short in this country. I am not allowed to buy a Buick car, or even to spend more than a hundred pounds in America if I wish to go there for a holiday."
• He thought rapidly. "We could do a silvery egg in steel, or a yellow egg if we heated a steel egg a bit, or a blue egg if we heated a steel egg quite a lot, or a grey egg if we case-hardened it."
• He came round and stethoscoped her chest and put her on cod liver oil and malt, which she liked, and approved the phenobarbitone at night for the next week or so.
• Later he filled the tank with an egg-cup of petrol provided for use in the ship's launch, strained carefully through a piece of chamois leather.
• "Birds fly from A to B just like aeroplanes. What I mean is, if he gets within a hundred miles of land, I think he'll find it." He paused. "Swell, seaweed, floating mangrove seeds - all that short of thing. Things that we don't use."
• The first officer took it, summoned the third, and told him to get out a mess list for two men for eight weeks, able seaman's scale, biscuit instead of bread. {I love people with lists.}
• Christmas Island and all that. Keep away from that - they let of atom bombs from time to time.
• He viewed it with satisfaction. "It's a great thing to belong to a wonderful country like the ol' United States," he remarked. "I mean, you Britishers, nobody wouldn't know if your Union Jack was upside down or not. But with Old Glory, there's no mistaking."
• "Don't go down just yet," he said in a low tone, but distinctly. "Wait while she gets her dress on." <> Keith stared at him in horror. "Wait while who gets her dress on?"
• "There's this yellow, gummy deposit on them," said the diamond merchant. "Have they been stored in oil?"

emery sticks, chamfer, rebate (in concrete), Troublesome Mountain