While hunting up the garage and negotiating for gasoline Steve thrust resolutely from his mind his encounter with O'Malley and the galling sense of inferiority it carried with it; but once on the highroad again the smart returned and the sting lingering behind the man's scorn was not to be allayed. It required every excuse his wounded dignity could muster to bolster up his pride and make out for himself the plausible case that had previously comforted him and lulled his conscience to rest. It was now more impossible than ever for him to make any confession, he decided; for having denied in his father's presence O'Malley's acquaintance it would be ridiculous to acknowledge that he had known the truck driver all along. Of course he could not do that. Whatever he might have said or done at the time, it was entirely too late to go back on his conduct now. One event had followed on the heels of another until to slip out a single stone of the structure he had built up would topple over the whole house.

If he had spoken in the beginning that would have been quite simple. All he could do now was to let bygones be bygones and in the pleasure of to-day forget the mistakes of yesterday. Consoled by this reflection he managed to recapture such a degree of his self-esteem that by the time he rejoined the family he was once more holding his head in the air and smiling with his wonted lightness of heart.

"We shall get you to Northampton now, daughter, without more delay, I hope," Mrs. Tolman affirmed when the car was again skimming along. "We may be a bit behind schedule; nevertheless a late arrival by motor will be pleasanter than to have made the trip by train."

"I should say so!" was the fervent ejaculation.

"Come, come!" interrupted Mr. Tolman. "I shall not sit back and allow you two people to cry down the railroads. They are not perfect, I will admit, and unquestionably trains do not always go at the hours we wish they did; a touring car is, perhaps, a more comfortable and luxurious method of travel, especially in summer. But just as it is an improvement over the train, so the train was a mighty advance over the stagecoach of olden days."

"Oh, I don't know, Dad," Stephen mused. "I am not so sure that I should not have liked stagecoaches better. Think what jolly sport it must have been to drive all over the country!"

"In fine weather, yes—that is, if the roads had been as excellent as they are now; but you must remember that in the old coaching days road-building had not reached its present perfection. Traveling by stage over a rough highway in a conveyance that had few springs was not so comfortable an undertaking as it is sometimes pictured. Furthermore you must not forget that it was also perilous, for not only was there danger from accident on these poorly constructed, unlighted thoroughfares but there was in addition the menace from highwaymen in the less populated districts. It took a great while to make a journey of any length, too, and to sleep in a coach where one was cramped, jolted, and either none too warm or miserably hot was not an unalloyed delight, as I am sure you will agree."

"I had not thought of any of those things," owned Stephen. "It just seemed on the face of it as if it must have been fun to ride on top of the coach and see the sights as one does from the Fifth Avenue or London buses."

"Oh," laughed his father, "a few hours' adventure like that is quite a different affair from making a stagecoach journey. I grant that to ride on a clear morning through the streets of a great city, or bowl along the velvet roads of a picturesque countryside as one frequently does in England is very delightful. To read Dickens' descriptions of journeys up to London is to long to don a greatcoat, wind a muffler about one's neck, and amid the cracking of whips and tooting of horns dash off behind the horses for the fairy city his pen portrays. Who would not have liked, for example, to set out with Mr. Pickwick for the Christmas holidays at Dingley Dell? Why, you cannot even read about it without seeing in your mind's eye the envious throng that crowded the inn yard and watched while the stableboys loosed the heads of the leaders and the steeds galloped away! And those marvelous country taverns he depicts, with their roaring fires, their steaming roasts, their big platters of fowl deluged in gravy, and their hot puddings! Was there ever writer more tantalizing?"

"You will have us all hungry in two minutes, Dad, if you keep on," exclaimed Stephen.

"And Dickens has us hungry, too," declared Mr. Tolman. "Nevertheless we must not forget that he paints but one side of the picture. He fails to emphasize what such a trip meant when the weather was cold and stormy, and those outside the coach as well as those inside it were often drenched with rain or snow, and well-nigh frozen to death. Moreover, while it is true that many of the inns along the turnpike were clean and furnished excellent fare, there were others that could boast nothing better than chilly rooms, damp beds, and only a very limited hospitality."

"I believe you are a realist, Henry," said his wife playfully.

Her husband laughed.

"Nor must we lose sight of the time consumed by making a trip by coach," he went on. "Business in those days was not such a rushing matter as it is now, of course; yet even when issues of importance were at stake, or crises of life and death were to be met, there was no hurrying things beyond a certain point. Physical impossibility prohibited it. Horses driven at their liveliest pace could cover only a comparatively small number of miles an hour; and at the points where the relays were changed, or the horses fed and rested; the mails deposited or taken aboard; and passengers left or picked up, there were unavoidable delays. In fact, the strongest argument against the stagecoach, and the one that influenced public opinion the most, was this so-called fast-mail service; for in order to make connections with other mail coaches along the route and not forfeit the money paid for doing so, horses were often driven at such a merciless rate of speed that the poor creatures became total wrecks within a very short time. Many a horse fell in its tracks in the inn yards, having been lashed along to make the necessary ten miles an hour and reach a specified town on schedule. Other horses were maimed for life. It is tragic to consider that in England before the advent of the railroad about thirty thousand horses were annually either killed outright or injured so badly that they were of little use afterward."

"Great Scott, Dad!" ejaculated Stephen.

"And England was no more guilty in this respect than was America, for in the early days of our own country when people were demanding quicker transportation and swifter mail service thousands of noble beasts offered up their last breath in making the required rate of speed."

"I suppose nobody thought about the horses," murmured the boy. "I am sure I didn't."

"If the public thought at all it was too selfish to care, I am afraid, until threatened by the possibility of the total extermination of these creatures," was his father's reply. "This danger, blended with a humane impulse which rose from the gentler-minded portion of the populace, was the decisive factor in urging men to seek out some other method of travel. Then, too, the world was waking up commercially and it was becoming imperative to find better ways for transporting the ever increasing supplies of merchandise. The quick moving of troops from one point to another was also an issue. Although the canals of England enabled the government to carry quite a large body of men, the method was a slow one. In 1806, for instance, it took exactly a week to shift troops from Liverpool to London, a distance of thirty-four miles."

"Why, they could have marched it in less time than that, couldn't they?" questioned Doris derisively.

"Yes, the journey might easily have been made on foot in two days," nodded her father. "But in war time a long march which exhausts the soldiers is frequently an unwise policy, for the men are in no condition when they arrive to go into immediate action, as reËnforcements often must."

"I see," answered Doris.

"When the Liverpool and Manchester Railroad was opened in 1830 this thirty-four miles was covered in two hours," continued Mr. Tolman. "Of course the quick transportation of troops was then, as now, of very vital importance. We have had plenty of illustrations of that in our recent war against Germany. Frequently the fate of a battle has hung on large reËnforcements being speedily dispatched to a weak point in the line. Moreover, by means of the railroads, vast quantities of food, ammunition and supplies of all sorts can constantly be sent forward to the men in action. During the late war our American engineers laid miles and miles of track under fire, thereby keeping open the route to the front so that there was no danger of the fighters being cut off and left unequipped. It was a service for which they, as well as our nation, won the highest praise. And not only was there a constant flow of supplies but it was by means of these railroads that hospital trains were enabled to carry to dressing stations far behind the lines thousands of wounded men whose lives might otherwise have been lost."

"I suppose the slightly wounded could be made more comfortable in this way, too," Mrs. Tolman suggested.

"Yes, indeed," was the reply. "Not only were the men better cared for in the roomier hospitals behind the lines, but as there was more space there the peril from contagion, always a menace when large numbers of sick are packed closely together, was greatly lessened; for there is nothing army doctors dread so much as an epidemic of disease when there is not enough room to isolate the patients."

"When did England adopt railroads in place of stagecoaches, Dad?" asked Doris presently.

At the question her father laughed.

"See here!" he protested good-humoredly, "what do you think I am? Just because I happen to be a superintendent do you think me a volume of railroad history, young woman? The topic, I confess, is a fascinating one; but I am off for a vacation to-day."

"Oh, tell us, Dad, do!" urged the girl.

"Nonsense! What is the use of spoiling a fine morning like this talking business?" objected her father.

"But it is not business to us," interrupted Mrs. Tolman. "It is simple a story—a sort of fairy tale."

"It is not unlike a fairy tale, that's a fact," reflected her husband gravely. "Imagine yourself back, then, in 1700, before steam power was in use in England. Now you must not suppose that steam had never been heard of, for an ancient Alexandrian record dated 120 B. C. describes a steam turbine, steam fountain, and steam boiler; nevertheless, Hero, the historian who tells us of them, leaves us in doubt as to whether these wonders were actually worked out, or if they were, whether they were anything but miniature models. Still the fact that they are mentioned goes to prove that there were persons in the world who at a very early date vaguely realized the possibilities of steam as a force, whether turned to practical uses or not. For years the subject remained an alluring one which led many a scientist into experiments without number. In various parts of the world men played with the idea and wrote about it; but no one actually produced any practical steam contrivance until 1650, when the second Marquis of Worcester constructed a steam fountain that could force the water from the moat around his castle as high as the top of one of the towers. The feat was looked upon as a marvel and afterward a larger fountain, similar in principle, was constructed at Vauxhall and from that time on the future of steam as a motive power was assured."

"Did the Marquis of Worcester go on with his experiments and make other things?" demanded Stephen.

"Apparently not," replied his father. "He did, nevertheless, furnish a basis for others to work on. Scientists were encouraged to investigate with redoubled zeal this strange vapor which, when controlled and directed, could carry water to the top of a castle tower. When in 1698 Savery turned Worcester's crude steam fountain to draining mines and carrying a water supply, every vestige of doubt that this mighty power could be applied to practical uses vanished."

"Did the steam engine come soon afterward?" queried Doris, who had become interested in the story.

"No, not immediately," answered Mr. Tolman, pausing to shift the gear of the car. "Before the steam engine, as we know it, saw the light, there had to be more experimenting and improving of the steam fountain. It was not until 1705 that Thomas Newcomen and his partner, John Calley, invented and patented the first real steam engine. Of course it was not in the least like the engines we use now. Still, it was a steam device with moving parts which would pump water, a tremendous advance over the mechanisms of the past where all the power had been secured by the alternate filling and emptying of a vacuum, or vacant receptacle, attached to the pump. Now, with Newcomen's engine a complete revolution took place. The engine with moving parts, the ancestor of our modern exquisitely constructed machinery, speedily crowded out the primitive steam fountain idea. The new device was very imperfect, there can be no question about that; but just as the steam fountain furnished the inspiration for the engine with moving parts, so this forward step became the working hypothesis for the engines that followed."

"What engines did follow?" Doris persisted, "and who did invent our steam engine?"

"Silly! And you in college," jeered Steve disdainfully.

"I am not taking a course in steam engines there," laughed his sister teasingly. "Anyway, girls are not expected to know who invented all the machines in the world, are they, Dad?"

Mr. Tolman waited a moment, then said soothingly:

"No, dear. Girls are not usually so much interested in scientific subjects as boys are—although why they should not be I never could quite understand. Nevertheless, I think it might be as well for even a girl to know to whom we are indebted for such a significant invention as the steam engine.

"It was James Watt," Stephen asserted triumphantly.

"It certainly was," his father agreed. "And since your brother has his information at his tongue's end, suppose we get him to tell us more about this remarkable person."

Stephen flushed.

"I'm afraid," began he lamely, "that I don't know much more. You see, I studied about him quite a long time ago and I don't remember the details. I should have to look it up. I do recall the name, though—"

His father looked amused.

"I don't know which of you children is the more blameworthy," remarked he in a bantering tone. "Doris, who never heard of Watt; or Stephen, who has forgotten all about him."

Both the boy and the girl chuckled good-humoredly.

"At least I knew his name, Dad—give me credit for that," piped Steve.

"That was something, certainly," Mrs. Tolman declared, joining in the laugh.

"Well, since neither of us can furnish the story, I don't see but that you will have to do it, Dad," Doris said mischievously.

"It would be a terrible humiliation if I should discover that I could not do it, wouldn't it?" replied Mr. Tolman with a smile. "In point of fact, there actually is not a great deal more that it is essential for one to know. It was by perfecting the engines of the Newcomen type and adding to them first one and then another valuable device that Watt finally built up the forerunner of our present-day engine. The progression was a gradual one. Now he would better one part, then some other. He surrounded the cylinder, for example, with a jacket, or chamber, which contained steam at the same pressure as that within the boiler, thereby keeping it as hot as the steam that entered it—a very important improvement over the old idea; then he worked out a plan by which the steam could be admitted at each end of the cylinder instead of at one end, as was the case with former engines. The latter innovation resulted in the push and pull of the piston rod. So it went."

"How did Watt come to know so much about engines?" asked Stephen.

"Oh, Watt was an engineer by trade—or rather he was a maker of mathematical instruments for the University of Glasgow, where he came into touch with a Newcomen engine. He also made surveys of rivers, harbors, and canals. So you see it was quite a consistent thing that a man with such a bent of mind should take up the pastime of experimenting with a toy like the steam engine in his leisure hours."

"Did he go so far as to patent it, Henry?" Mrs. Tolman questioned.

"Yes, he did. Many of our scientists either had not the wit to do this, alas, or else they were too impractical to appreciate the value of their ideas. In consequence the glory and financial benefit of what they did was often filched from them. But Watt was a Scotchman and canny enough to realize to some extent what his invention was worth. He therefore obtained a patent on it which was good for twenty-five years; and when, in 1800, this right expired he retired from business with both fame and fortune."

"It is nice to hear of one inventor who got something out of his toil," Mrs. Tolman observed.

"Indeed it is. Think of the many men who have slaved day and night, forfeited health, friends, and money to give to the world an idea, and never lived to receive either gratitude or financial reward, dying unknown or entirely forgotten. There is something tragic about the injustice of it. But Watt, I am glad to say, lived long enough to witness the service he had done mankind and enjoy an honored place among the great of the world."

"Is the kind of engine Watt invented now in use?" Doris inquired.

"Yes, that is a double-acting or reciprocating engine of a more perfect type," her father returned. "Mechanics and engineers went on improving Watt's engine just as he had improved those that had preceded it. It is interesting, too, to notice that after thousands of years scientists have again worked around to the steam turbine described so long ago in the Alexandrian records. This engine, although it does away with many of the moving parts introduced by Newcomen, preserves the essential principles of that early engine combined with Watt's later improvements. To-day we have a number of different kinds of engines, their variety differing with the purpose to which they are applied. Their cost, weight, and the space they require have been reduced and their power increased, and in addition we have made it possible to run them not only by means of coal or wood but by gasoline, oil, or electricity. We have small, light-weight engines for navigation use; mighty engines to propel our great warships and ocean liners; stationary engines for mills and power plants; to say nothing of the wonderful locomotive engines that can draw the heaviest trains over the highest of mountains. The principle of all these engines is, however, the same and for the brain behind them we must thank James Watt."

"Was it Watt who invented the locomotive, too?" ventured Doris. Her father shook his head.

"The perfecting of the locomotive, my dear, is, as Kipling says, another story."

"Tell it to us."

"Not now, daughter," protested Mr. Tolman. "I am far too hungry; and more than that I am eager to enjoy this beautiful country and forget railroads and locomotives."

"Did you say you were hungry, Henry?" asked Mrs. Tolman.

"I am—starved!" her husband said apologetically. "Isn't it absurd to be hungry so early in the day?"

"It is nearly noon, Dad!" said Steve, glancing down at the clock in the front of the car.

"Noon! Why, I thought it was still the middle of the morning."

"No, indeed! While you have been talking we have come many a mile, and the time has slipped past," his wife said. "If all goes well—" The shot from a bursting tire rent the air.

"Which evidently it does not," interrupted Mr. Tolman grimly, bringing the car to a stop. "How aggravating! We were almost into Palmer, where I had planned for us to lunch. Now it may be some little time before we can get anything to eat."

"Motorist's luck! Motorist's luck, my dear!" cried Mrs. Tolman gaily. "An automobilist must resign himself to taking cheerfully what comes."

"That is all very well," grumbled her husband, as he clambered out of the car. "Nevertheless you must admit that this mishap on the heels of the other one is annoying."

Stephen also got out and the two bent to examine the punctured tire.

"I should not mind so much if I were not so hungry," murmured Mr. Tolman. "How are you, Steve? Fainting away?"

The boy laughed.

"Well, I could eat something if I had it," he confessed.

"I wish I hadn't mentioned food," went on Mr. Tolman humorously. "It was an unfortunate suggestion."

"I'm hungry, too," piped Doris.

"There, you see the epidemic you have started, Henry," called Mrs. Tolman accusingly. "Here is Doris vowing she is in the last throes of starvation."

Nobody noticed that in the meanwhile the mother had reached down and lifted into her lap the small suitcase hidden in the bottom of the car. She opened the cover and began to remove its contents.

At length, when a remark her husband made to her went unheeded, he sensed her preoccupation and came around to the side of the car where she was sitting. Immediately he gave a cry of surprise.

"My word!" he exclaimed. "Steve, come here and see what your mother has."

Stephen looked.

There sat Mrs. Tolman, unpacking with quiet enjoyment sandwiches, eggs, cake, cookies, and olives.

A shout of pleasure rose from the famished travelers.

"So it was not your jewels, after all, Mater!" cried Stephen.

"No, and after the way you have slandered me and my little suitcase, none of you deserve a thing to eat," his mother replied. "However, I am going to be magnanimous if only to shame you. Now climb in and we will have our lunch. You can fix the tire afterward."

The men were only too willing to obey.

As with brightened faces they took their seats in the car, Stephen smiled with affection at his mother.

"Well, Mater, Watt was not the only person who lived to see himself appreciated; and I don't believe people were any more grateful to him for his steam engine than we are to you right now for this luncheon. You are the best mother I ever had."