.

Tom took the blue-prints and spread them on the desk, absorbing the
details as his father leaned over him and pointed them out. He saw
clearly that the invention would revolutionize pipe-making. The accepted
method was to cast each piece separately in a floor flask made in two
parts, rammed by hand, once for the drag and again for the cope, with
reversings, crane-handlings and all the manipulations necessary for the
molding of any heavy casting. But the new process substituted machinery.
A cistern-like pit; a circular table pivoted over it, with a hundred or
more iron flasks suspended upright from its edges; a huge crane carrying
a mechanical ram, these were the main points of the machine which, with
a single small gang of men, would do the work of an entire foundry
floor.

"It's great!" said Tom enthusiastically. "I got your idea pretty well
from your letters, but you've improved on it since then. I wonder Farley
didn't snap at it."

"He was willin' to," said Caleb grimly. "Only he wanted me to transfer
the patents to the company; in other words, to make him a present of the
controlling interest. I bucked at that, and we come near havin' a
fall-out. If there was any market for pipe now--"

"There is a market," said Tom hopefully. "I got a pointer on that before
I left Boston. Did I tell you I had a little talk with Mr. Clarkson the
day I came away?"

"No."

"Well, I did. I told him the conditions and asked his advice. Among
other things, I spoke of this pipe pit of yours, and he said at once,
'There is your chance. Cast-iron water-pipe is like bread, or sugar, or
butcher's meat--it's a necessity, in good times or bad. If that machine
is practicable, you can make pipe for less than half the present labor
cost.' Then we talked ways and means. Money is tighter than a shut
fist--up East as well as everywhere else. But men with money to invest
will still bet on a sure thing. Mr. Clarkson advised me to try our own
banks first. Failing with them, he authorized me to call on him. Now you
know where I'm digging my sand."

The old iron-master sat back in his chair with his hands locked over one
knee, once more taking the measure of this new creation calling itself
Tom Gordon and purporting to be his son.

"Say, Buddy," he said at length, "are there many more like you out
yonder in the big road?--young fellows that can walk right out o' school
and tell their daddies how to run things?"

Tom's laugh was boyishly hea