$ man wget When running Wget without -N, -nc, or -r, downloading the same file in the same directory will result in the original copy of file being preserved and the second copy being named file.1.
$ wget -x http://static.howstuffworks.com/flash/toilet.swf $ wget -x http://static.howstuffworks.com/flash/toilet.swf Clobbered the first. So better fix the docs. Also there is no way to get file.1 with -x. I suggest you make a way.