"John D. Fitzgerald - The Great Brain At the AcademyUC - 4" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fitzgerald John D)

All the passengers in the coach except Sweyn began to
laugh. Sweyn felt so embarrassed that he slid way down in
his seat. "You have only been on this train for about ten
minutes," he said, "and you've already made us the laugh-
ing stock of everybody in this coach."

"They won't be laughing very long," Tom said, con-
fident that his great brain would not let him down.

"You must be plumb loco," Sweyn said with disgust.
"They have engineers with years of experience designing
trains. If there was any way to open windows without get-
ting cinders and smoke into the passenger cars they would
have invented it."

Do you think that made Tom give up? Heck no.

"The men who built Conestoga wagons and prairie
schooners never thought of putting brakes on them," he
said. "Thousands of emigrants who came West had to
chain their rear wheels when going down a grade. Then
one day one of them got tired of chaining his wheels. He
used a shovel handle, a couple of two-by-fours to lever, a wooden block, a piece of rope, and the sole of one

of his old shoes and made a brake for his wagon. Now
please be quiet while I put my great brain to work."

Tom's great brain must have been working like sixty
because when the conductor returned he was ready.

"Here I am, Tom Fitzgerald," the conductor said
with a smile on his ruddy face. "Now tell me how we can
open windows on trains without getting cinders or smoke
in the cars."

Tom wasn't about to divulge his plan for nothing.
When he put his great brain to work he expected to be
paid for it.

"I'll expect some financial reward if the railroad uses
my idea," he said.

"Naturally," the conductor said. "And you have all
these passengers as witnesses that it was your idea."

"They could run a pipe from the smokestack on the
locomotive along the top of the train to the caboose,"
Tom said, "and let all the cinders and smoke out behind
the train."

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