Eradicate Sampson drove his wagon a short distance and then suddenly applied the brake.  It stopped short, and the mule looked around as if surprised.

“It suah do work, Mistah Swift!” called the darky to Tom, who was waiting the result of his little repair job.  “It suah do work!”

“I’m glad of it.”

“Mah golly!  But yo’ am suttinly a conjure-man when it comes t’ fixin’ wagons!  Did yo’ eber work fer a blacksmith?”

“No, not exactly.  Well, good-by, Eradicate.  I’ll look for you some day next week.”

With that Tom leaped on his machine and speeded off ahead of the colored man and his rig.  As he passed the load of fence posts the youth heard Eradicate remark in awestricken tones: 

“Mah golly!  He suttinly go laik de wind!  An’ t’ t’ink dat I were hit by dat monstrousness machine, an’ not hurted!  Mah golly!  T’ings am suttinly happenin’!  G’lang, Boomerang!”

“This machine has more possibilities in it than I suspected,” mused Tom.  “But one thing I’ve got to change, and that is the gasolene and spark controls.  I don’t like them the way they are.  I want a better leverage, just as Eradicate needed on his wagon.  I’ll fix them, too, when I get home.”

He rode for several hours, until he thought it was about dinner time, and then, heading the machine toward home, he put on all the speed possible, soon arriving where his father was at work in the shop.

“Well, how goes it?” asked Mr. Swift with a smile as he looked at the flushed face of his son.

“Fine, dad!  I scooted along in great shape.  Had an adventure, too.”

“You didn’t meet any more of those men, did you?  The men who are trying to get my invention?” asked Mr. Swift apprehensively.

“No, indeed, dad.  I simply had a little run-in with a chap named Eradicate Andrew Jackson Abraham Lincoln Sampson, otherwise known as Rad Sampson, and I engaged him to do some whitewashing for us.  We do need some white washing done, don’t we, dad?”

“What’s that?” asked Mr. Swift, thinking his son was joking.

Then Tom told of the happening.

“Yes, I think I can find some work for Eradicate to do,” went on Mr. Swift.  “There is some dirt in the boiler shop that needs eradicating, and I think he can do it.  But dinner has been waiting some time.  We’ll go in now, or Mrs. Baggert will be out after us.”

Father and son were soon at the table, and Tom was explaining what he meant to do to improve his motor-cycle.  His father offered some suggestions regarding the placing of the gasolene lever.

“I’d put it here,” he said, and with his pencil he began to draw a diagram on the white table cloth.

“Oh, my goodness me, Mr. Swift!” exclaimed Mrs. Baggert.  “Whatever are you doing?” and she sprang up in some alarm.

“What’s the matter?  Did I upset my tea?” asked the inventor innocently.

“No; but you are soiling a clean tablecloth.  Pencil-marks are so hard to get out.  Take a piece of paper, please.”