eight and passenger service, to keep ahead of Montagne
Lewis's rival road, the Hendrickton & Western."

"You don't suppose it can be done, do you?" demanded Ned. "The
two-mile-a-minute locomotive, I mean, Tom."

"That is the target I am to aim for," returned his friend, soberly. "At
any rate, I hope to improve on the type of locomotive Mr. Bartholomew
is now using, so that the hundred thousand dollars bonus will come our
way as well as this first twenty-five thousand."

"That wouldn't pay for one engine, would it?" cried Ned.

"Nor is it expected to. The bonus has nothing to do with payment for
any model, or patent, or anything of the kind. To tell you the truth,
Ned, I understand those big locomotives used by the Chicago, Milwaukee
& St. Paul cost them about one hundred and twelve thousand dollars
each."

"Whew! Some price, I'll tell the world!" murmured the youthful
financial manager of the Swift Construction Company.

When the conference was over, and Tom had been through the workshop to
overlook several little jobs that were in process of completion by his
trusted mechanics, it was lunch time. He left word that he would not be
back that day, for this new task he was to attack was not to be
approached with any haphazard thought.

Tom knew quite as well as his father knew that the idea of improving
the Jandel patent on electric locomotives was no small thing. The
Jandel people had claimed that their patent was the very last word in
electric motor-power. And Tom was quite willing to acknowledge that in
some ways this claim was true.

But in invention, especially in the field of electric invention, what
is the last word today may be ancient history tomorrow.

It was because this field is so broad and the possibility of
improvement in every branch of electrical science so exciting, that Tom
had accepted Mr. Bartholomew's challenge with such eagerness.

Tom went back to the house for lunch, and as he joined his father in
the dining room he remarked to Eradicate:

"I want the electric runabout brought around after lunch. I am going to
Waterfield. Tell Koku, will you, Rad?"

"Tell that crazy fellow?" demanded the old colored man heatedly. "Why
should I tell him, Massa Tom? Ain't I able to bring dat runabout out o'
de garbarge? Shore I is!"

"You can't do everything, Rad," said Tom, soberly. "That is humanly
impossible."

"But dat Koku can't do nothin' right. Dat's inhumanly possible, Massa
Tom."

"Give h