“Sounds like a dream,” Johnny had sighed.
“It is a dream—a dream that has come true,” the old man had fairly shouted. “All that is needed is capital to perfect larger motors, to put them upon the market. If only your president can be made to see it, as you and I see it—”
“I’ll try,” Johnny had gripped the old inventor’s hand. “I’ll see what I can do.”
The next night Pant had accompanied Johnny to the aged inventor’s room, and there over some wonderful coffee and doughnuts prepared by the inventor’s wife, they talked over the future of the strange dust-burning engine.
It was decided that, since the engine had never been tried out in any vehicle, Johnny and Pant should obtain permission to experiment with it in the factory after hours to perfect it further before it was presented to the busy president.
Three weeks of spare time experimenting had resulted in the complete wreck of the engine, smashed against a brick wall.
“Now we’ll have to begin all over again, and because that watchman turns us in we’ll have to show our plans to the president,” said Johnny.
The revealing of their plans was not the misfortune they thought it, for Mr. McFarland at once became keenly interested in the enterprise. He took them off their regular work and set them doing full time in experimenting with this new engine.
In two weeks they had a new mule doing double-quick time all over the shop. Another two weeks saw them riding about the streets of the city in a car driven by a dust-burning motor.
Their happiness knew no bounds. Boundless, too, were their ambitions. This should be the airplane engine of the future. Two twelve-cylinder motors were manufactured for the seaplane they were to drive and the plane and motors were shipped to the Pacific coast where, over the placid waters of a bay, they might experiment with little danger of disaster.