"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,