happened that came near to wrecking utterly Tom's invention and
completely putting an end to Tom himself as an inventor.

Chapter X

A Strange Conversation

Mr. Wakefield Damon frequently came to the shops, for he was not alone
very friendly with the Swifts, but he was greatly interested in Tom's
new invention.

"If it goes as good as what you did for my chicken run," he declared,
chuckling, "bless my dampers! you'll beat all the electric locomotives
in the market."

"That is easy, perhaps," said Tom smiling. "There are not many in the
market at the present time. But I don't know what mine will be. This is
going to be some job."

"Bless my flues and clinkers!" cried Mr. Damon, "you are not losing
hope, Tom Swift? Look what you did for my chicken run. And believe me,
that entanglement will give a shock that makes a man stand right up and
shake."

"Have you tried it yourself?" asked Tom.

"No. But my servant did. I saw him through the window of my study doing
some kind of a shimmy with the shovel. Thought he'd gone crazy. Then I
saw what he had done. It was early in the morning and I hadn't turned
the current off, and he had put one hand against the wires. When he
dropped the shovel as I told him to, bless my plyers and nippers! he
was all right."

"The current would not seriously hurt him," said Tom. "I was careful
about that."

"It killed two tomcats," said Mr. Damon. "I certainly was glad of that,
for those two ash-barrel cats kept the whole neighborhood awake. Bless
my claws and whiskers! how those two cats did use to yell. But when one
tried to climb the wires and the other sprang on him, it was all over!
That is, all over but the burial party."

Mr. Damon was on the ground when the mechanical equipment and a part of
the electrical equipment of the new locomotive arrived and was set up
in the erection shed. The length of the machine was what first
impressed Ned Newton as well as Mr. Damon.

"Bless my yardstick!" exclaimed the eccentric man, "it's as long as a
gossip's tongue. What a monster it will be!"

"How long is it, Tom?" asked Ned Newton.

"When completed, and standing on its drivers and bogie truck and
trailer truck, from cow-catcher to rear bumper it will be a few inches
over ninety feet. And that is slightly longer than the biggest electric
locomotive so far built. But length does not so much enter into the
value of the machine. I would have it built more compactly if I could."