That was fair. It was right his engine should be properly tested. All agreed; and in a few days proposals were issued for the building of one. There were eight conditions, two of which were that if the engine were of six tons weight, it should be able to draw twenty tons, at a speed as high as ten miles an hour. The prize was five hundred pounds.
The offer excited a great deal of attention, and many people made themselves merry at its expense. The conditions were absurd, they said; nobody but a set of fools would have made them: it had already been proved impossible to make a locomotive-engine go at ten miles an hour. And one gentleman in his heat even went so far as to say that if it ever were done, he would undertake to eat a stewed engine-wheel for his breakfast! As that condition was fully answered, it is to be hoped that he was generously relieved from his rash promise and his indigestible dish.
More candid minds turned with interest to the development of this new force struggling into notice. Stephenson felt how much depended on the issue; and the public generally concluded to suspend their verdict upon the proper working of railways, until time and talent gave them better means of judging.
CHAPTER VIII.
ROBERT'S RETURN—A CURIOUS ENCOUNTER—THE
PRIZE ENGINE.
One step forward; yes, a great one too, Stephenson thought. His beloved locomotive was to have a chance of being properly introduced to the great English public, and he felt that it needed only to be known to be valued. The building of it was a matter of no small moment, and he wanted, above all things, a tried and skilful hand to superintend and put into its construction every conceivable improvement. It must be the best engine yet built.
Where should he find the right man? No one would answer like his son Robert, so Robert he determined to send for. Robert, you remember, went to South America three years before. There he had regained his health, and on receiving his father's letter, he made immediate preparations to return to England.
A CURIOUS ENCOUNTER.