Page:Dick Hamilton's Fortune.djvu/277

Rh more shoes until I haf saved money enough, und den I try again," and he smiled as though what had just happened was the thing he had always desired.

The crowd gathered about the disabled airship, which was mostly consumed by the flames before it had reached the earth. Herr Doodlebrod had the men save what they could, and, not a bit discouraged, he set about packing up the remnants to take away.

"Too bad," remarked Colonel Claflin, "but such accidents will happen. He's a cool fellow, at any rate."

Dick and his father went home together in the runabout, the colonel declining their invitation to pay them a visit. The German inventor went away and that was the last seen of him.

Swiftly the days passed, and in sheer desperation Dick invested several hundred dollars in three different schemes. But none of them paid. In one he lost all his money and in the others he got his money back and that was all.

"It's no use!" he groaned to himself. "I guess it takes a brighter fellow than I to make money."

Mr. Hamilton did not say much, but he was almost as anxious as his son, for he did not wish to see Dick fail.

One morning Mr. Hamilton went out with Dick in the youth's runabout.

"Well, my son, to-morrow is your birthday,"