"But I don't exactly like to do that," said Ned. "It's always a good thing to have a little money. And, besides, she'd lose faith in me, and think I couldn't invent anything. And next time, when we had really made a good thing, she'd think it was only another failure, and wouldn't furnish the money. That's one reason why I made this invention that I have in my pocket now. We can use the money on this, and tell Aunt Mercy we changed off from the Underground Railroad to a better thing."
"How do you do to-day, Jack?"
"Pretty well, thank you! How are you? Come in, boys; I'm glad to see you."
"Would you be willing to look at another invention for us?"
"Certainly; with the greatest pleasure."
"I hope it will turn out to be better than the other—that is, more practical," said Ned. "But you see, Jack, that was our first invention, and I suppose we can only improve by practice."
"That is about the only way," said Jack. "What is your second invention?"
Ned drew a bit of paper from his pocket.
"The other day," said he, "I heard Father reading a piece in the newspaper about a church that was struck by lightning, although it had a lightning-rod. The reason was, that the rod was broken apart at one place, and nobody had noticed it, or if they had, they didn't take the trouble to fix it. People are always careless about those things. And so they lost their church. Father says there are a good many things that spoil lightning-rods. He says, if there's rust in the joints they won't work."
"That's true," said Jack.