Instead of replying at once, Captain Anderson dropped back by Mrs. Leighton’s side.
“Madam,” he said soberly, “the doctor said your brother-in-law died o’ heart disease. But there was enough other things in that shop o’ his to kill him,—gases and fumes and odors,—and if I had a guess about what ended his lonesome life, I’d say it was as much that idea of his as a weak heart. If he ever got at the bottom o’ what he was lookin’ for,” added Captain Anderson, turning to the eager Andy, “I reckon no one’ll ever know unless he wrote it down. And there’s nothin’ o’ that sort so far as I know.”
While Mrs. Leighton made further inquiries concerning her late relative Andy’s brain was beginning to burn with a sudden and new curiosity. Andy’s father was a factory foreman, and the family lived in a modest home in a city suburb, but the boy had already finished the second year of high school. Andy had all the dreams, desires, and determinations of the average boy. But he had something more—a decided bent for mechanics.
Only the summer before, Andy and a classmate had made a single-cylinder gas engine. It didn’t happen to work when completed, but that didn’t matter. The making of it had given Andy a good knowledge of engines. Like many an older person, he was already theorizing on a new motive power. Anyway, he knew what Captain Joe meant when he spoke of “calcium something.”
“Captain Anderson,” said Andy, breaking in on the talk of his elders, “is it too late to see my uncle’s shop to-night?”
“It’ll be too late when we’ve had some supper. But in the morning I’ll turn over the key. Everything is there just as Mr. Leighton left it—except the engine he made two years ago, and that’s in my boathouse.”
“Does that one work?” persisted Andy, eagerly.
“It does, with gasoline,” returned the man. “That’s the one your uncle made for the aero-catamaran. I’ll turn that over to you—I haven’t any use for power-boats.”
“Aero-catamaran?” exclaimed Andy. “What’s that?”