“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 109 any of their locomotives. I just want to study them.”
“That’s all right,” said Ralph, “I’ll see you to-morrow and fix things for you, so you will be welcome among my railroad friends.”
“You’re a royal good fellow, Mr. Ralph,” declared the young inventor with enthusiasm, “and I don’t know how to thank you enough.”
“Well, I’ve tried to do something for humanity to-day,” reflected the young engineer brightly, as he wended his way homewards. “It comes easy and natural, too, when a fellow’s trying to do his level best.”