electric car, it occurred to me that I might put my battery into
an auto, and win."

"Hum," remarked Mr. Swift musingly. "I don't take much stock in
electric autos, Tom. Gasolene seems to be the best, or perhaps
steam, generated by gasolene. I'm afraid you'll be disappointed.
All the electric runabouts I ever saw, while they were very nice
cars, didn't seem able to go so very fast, or very far."

"That's true, but it's because they didn't have the right kind
of a battery. You know an electric locomotive can make pretty
good speed, Dad. Over a hundred miles an hour in tests."

"Yes, but they don't run by storage batteries. They have a
third rail, and powerful motors," and Mr. Swift looked
quizzically at his son. He loved to argue with him, for he said
it made Tom think, and often the two would thus thresh out some
knotty point of an invention, to the interests of both.

"Of course, Dad, there is a good deal of theory in what I'm
thinking of," the lad admitted. "But it does seem to me that if
you put the right kind of a battery into an automobile, it could
scoot along pretty lively. Look what speed a trolley car can
make."

"Yes, Tom, but there again they get their power from an
overhead wire."

"Some of them don't. There's a new storage battery been
invented by a New Jersey man, which does as well as the third