Page:Ralph on the Railroad.djvu/1000

176 "It looks that way; it looks to me as if you were watching the locomotive."

"She's worth watching, isn't she?"

"Yes, but you act as if you expect her to do something.",

"Ha! ha!—that's it, h'm—you see—say, wish I could run down the line with you this morning."

"We're crowded in the cab, as you see," explained Ralph, "but if you want the discomfort of balancing on the tank cover back there"

"I'd dote on it—thanks, thanks," said Archie with a fervor that increased Ralph's curiosity as to his strange actions this particular morning.

"Got some new bee in his head?" suggested Fogg, as Archie scrambled up over the coal. "He'll have a new kind of locomotive built by the time we clear the limits—that is, in his mind."

Lord Lionel Montague warmed up to Ralph the next few minutes before starting time. He asked a few casual questions about the mechanisms of No. 999, and then seemed tremendously interested in the young engineer himself.

"I've taken a fawncy to you, Mr. Fairbanks, don't you know," he drawled out. "I'd like to cultivate you, quite. I must call on you at Stanley Junction. There's a great deal you might tell me of interest, don't you see."