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68 two or three years, she became imbued with the idea that if once she obtained access to you she might yet circumvent the enemy, and, seeing my name connected with yours in the public Press, it occurred to her that perhaps I was the son of her father's friend, so she came across, and appealed to me for an introduction to you."

"Then you selfishly kept quiet about the matter until such time as the poor girl arrived at the erroneous belief that you are a better man than I. How gullible women are, after all! But we will abandon romance, and tackle finance. What has her father invented this time?"

"He has produced a most ingenious electrical device which is attached to railway locomotives. It is quite automatic, and acts independently of either the locomotive engineer or the stoker. Its object is to prevent collisions and the disastrous telescoping of trains, which is unfortunately so frequent on the railways of America, and, indeed, in this country as well. Suppose two trains are approaching one another along a single line of railway, each concealed from the other by a curvature of the track, and intervening forest or hill. Sarsfield-Mitcham's device comes into operation when the trains are about half a mile or more apart. It stops the engine and applies the brake. Even the most stupid and stubborn engineer cannot get his train in motion again until the line ahead is clear."