“Stop! stop!” interrupted the doctor, in amazement.  “Do you mean to say——­”

“And the back of my neck feels out of kilter somehow,” continued Tom, “and Sam’s left hip isn’t just as straight as it should be, and when I hit my elbow I have the funniest sensation crawl down my shoulder blade ever was, and we all think we ought to go to a sanitarium for at least six months or a year; don’t you think so, too, Doctor?”

“Well, I never!” gasped Doctor Slamper, falling back against a center table.  “Why, my dear young men, I think——­”

“And the Dartaway is gone—­ our dear old flying machine!” groaned Tom.  “The machine we hoped to fly in to Washington, to the next inauguration.  Why, don’t you know that the planes of that machine were covered with the autographs of most of the big men of this country?  Whenever we sailed around to visit our friends or the big men we had them write their autographs on the canvas wings of the machine.  Those autographs alone were worth about a million, more or less!”

“What’s this?” put in Belright Fogg, quickly.  “A flying machine valuable because of the autographs on it?  Preposterous!  If you think the railroad will stand to pay anything on such a thing as that, you are mistaken.”

“But how are we to get those autographs back?” whined Tom.  “Some of the men who gave them may be dead now!”

“See here, let us get down to business,” cried Belright Fogg.  “You don’t look to be knocked out—­ at least, not a great deal anyway.  Am I right, Doctor?”

“I—­ I think so.  Of course they may be—­ be shocked a little,” returned the physician.  “Probably they are—­ from the way this young man talks—­ little nervous disorder.”  And he pointed at Tom, while Dick and Sam had to turn away, to keep from bursting into laughter.

“Um!  Nervous, eh?  Well, a few days of quietness will remedy that,” answered the lawyer.  “Now, see here.”  He looked wisely at the three Rovers.  “Our railroad disclaims all responsibility for this accident.  But at the same time we—­ er—­ we want to do the right thing, you know—­ rather do that than have any unpleasant feelings, understand?  Now if you are willing to accept our offer, we’ll fix this matter right up and say no more about it.”

“What is you offer?” questioned Dick.

“Three hundred dollars—­ one hundred dollars each.”

“You mean for our personal injuries?” questioned Sam.

“I mean for everything.”

“Nothing doing,” returned Dick, promptly, and with a bit of pardonable slang.

“You will not accept?”

“We might accept three hundred dollars for the shaking up we got—­ although we don’t know if our nerves are all right or not.  Sometimes these things turn out worse than at first anticipated.  But the railroad has got to pay for the biplane it smashed.”

“Never!”

“I think it will.”

“You got in the way of the train—­ it was your own fault.”