ope. However, if he wants to have a second glimpse of our boats now
we'll let him, won't we, Dick?"

Again the boy smiled a timid smile into his benefactor's face.

[Illustration: "I wish you'd tell me about this queer little
old-fashioned boat." Page 181.]

It did not take long to reach the house and soon the three were in the
wonderful room with its panorama of ships moving past the windows and
its flotilla of still more ships decorating the walls.

"Now you boys go ahead and entertain yourselves as you please," Mr.
Ackerman said. "I am going to sit here and read the paper; but if there
is anything you want to ask me you are welcome to do so."

Stephen strolled over to the mantelpiece and stood before the model of
the quaint side-wheeler that had held his attention at the time of his
first visit; then he stole a furtive glance at the man in the big chair.

"Did you really mean, Mr. Ackerman," he faltered, "that we could ask you
questions?"

"Certainly."

"Then I wish you'd tell me about this queer little old-fashioned boat,
and how you happened to put it between this up-to-date ocean liner and
this battleship."

The elder man looked up.

"That boat that interests you is a model of Fulton's steamboat--or at
least as near a model as I could get," explained he. "I put it there to
show the progress we have made in shipbuilding since that day."

Steve laughed.

"I see the progress all right," replied he, "but I am afraid I do not
know much about Fulton and his side-wheeler."

Mr. Ackerman let the paper slip into his lap.

"I assumed every boy who went to school learned about Robert Fulton,"
answered he, half teasingly and yet with real surprise.

"I suppose I ought to have learned about him," retorted Stephen, with
ingratiating honesty, "and maybe I did once. But if I did I seem to have
forgotten about it. You see there are such a lot of those old chaps who
did things that I get them all mixed up."

Apparently the sincerity of the confession pleased the capitalist for he
laughed.

"I know!" returned he sympathetically. "Every year more and more things
roll up to remember, don't they? Had we lived long ago, before so many
battles and discoveries had taken place, and so many books been written,
life would have been much simpler. Now the learning of all the ages
comes piling down on our heads. But at least you can congratulate
yourself that you are not so badly off as the boys will be a hundred
years hen