“You won’t have to do without me,” replied Tom. “In fact, you couldn’t lose me if you tried,” and he grinned broadly.
Mary’s parents thanked Tom heartily for his opportune appearance and the way he had rid them of their obnoxious visitor, and then, because they were wise parents, they slipped away on different pretexts and left the young people to themselves.
Tom’s new invention and his projected trip to Texas were eagerly discussed by the pair. As regards the first, Mary was enthusiastic.
“It’s simply wonderful,” she said, after Tom had detailed to her as far as he could the plan of his drill, what it had already done and what he expected it to do. “I don’t see where on earth you get all those ideas of yours from. Think of all the men who have been studying along those lines for years without hitting on the thing that you’ve developed in a few weeks.”
“Oh, some one has to think of it first,” replied Tom. “Then, too, remember that I had the benefit of what others have already done. It’s like a band of pioneers going through a forest and taking turns cutting down the trees to make a trail. Some one of them gets the axe that cuts down the last tree. But he wouldn’t be there to cut it down if he hadn’t walked up to it along the paths that the other fellows have made first.”
“That’s just your modest way of putting it,” said Mary. “In this case the last tree was the toughest, and you cut it down in half the time any one else would. So there.”
“I’d like to have you on the jury if I were being tried for my life,” laughed Tom.
But concerning the trip to Texas, Mary was not by any means so enthusiastic. In fact, her pretty lips had a decided pout.
“It’s an awfully long way off,” she said, “and when you get down there with your old oil well you’ll forget all about poor little me.”
“Don’t worry, Mary,” he answered. “I’ll write every day.”