began to speak of it outside the works.

Not that they betrayed any secrets regarding the locomotive. In
fact, as yet none of them knew anything about what Tom intended
to do with the big machine. But the story soon circulated that
Tom Swift, the young inventor, was about to show all the previous
builders of electric locomotives how such machines should be
built.

It was even whispered that Tom's objective was a two-mile-a-
minute locomotive. And when this was publicly known the
information was not long in seeping to the ears of certain men
who had been keeping as close a watch as they dared on the Swift
Construction Company and the activities of Tom himself.

Ned Newton went to the bank one Friday for money for the
payroll of the working and clerical force of the Swift Company.
It was an errand he never relegated to any employee.

Ned had once worked himself in the bank, and naturally he knew
many of its employees as well as the officials. With his back to
the general waiting room, he sat at the vice president's desk
discussing some minor matter. Only a railing divided the vice
president's enclosure from the long settee on which waiting
customers of the bank were seated.

Ned knew that there were two men directly behind him,
whispering together; but he paid no attention to them until he
heard this phrase: