lared Archie. "Well, at Bridgeport they take
me as a joke, see? That's all right; I'll show them, some day. They
voted me a nuisance at the shops and shut me out. Wouldn't let me
come near their engines. I had to find out some things necessary to my
inventions, so I came on to Stanley Junction. Rode in a coach like any
other civilized being until I got about ten miles from here--last
stop."

"Yes," nodded Ralph.

"Well, there I stepped out of the coach and under it. Whew! but it was
an experience I'll never try again. All the same, I got what I was
after. I wanted to learn how many revolutions an axle made in so many
minutes. I wanted to know, too, how a belt could be attached under a
coach. I've got the outlines of the facts, how to work out my
invention: 'Graham's Automatic Bellows Gearing.'"

Ralph did not ask for further details as to the device his companion
had in mind. He led a pleasant conversation the way from the depot,
and when they reached the hotel introduced Archie to its proprietor.

"This friend of mine will be all right for what he orders, Mr. Lane,"
said Ralph.

"Yes, I'm going to stay here some days, perhaps a week or two,"
explained the young inventor, "so, if you'll give me a blank check
I'll fill it for what cash I may need. You put it through your bank
and the funds will be here to-morrow."

Everything was arranged in a satisfactory way, even to Archie ordering
a new suit of clothes. The youth came out temporarily from his usual
profundity, and had a real, natural boyish talk with Ralph. The latter
recited the incident of the adventure with Billy Bouncer's crowd at
Bridgeport.

"Oh, that Jim Scroggins fellow," said Archie, with a smile. "Yes, I
remember--'kick him Scroggins.' You see, he had broken into my
workshop, destroyed some devices I was working on and stole a lot of
my tools. So you're Mr. Fairbanks? I've heard of you."

"Ralph, you mean, Mr. Graham," observed the young railroader
pleasantly.

"Then Archie, you mean," added his eccentric companion. "I'd like to
be friends with you, for I can see you are the right sort. You've done
a good deal for me."

"Oh, don't notice that."

"And you can do a good deal more."

"Indeed? How?"

"By getting me free range of your roundhouse here. Can you?"

"I will be glad to do it," answered Ralph.

"I hope you will," said Archie gratefully. "They don't know me here,
and they won't poke fun at me or hinder me. I'm not going to steal
a