"I will give
it to you in a few words. If you will experiment with the
electric locomotive idea, to develop speed and power over and
above the Jandel patent, and will give me the first call on the
use of any patents you may contrive, I will put up twenty-five
thousand dollars in cash which shall be yours whether I can make
use of a thing you invent or not."
"Any time limit in this agreement, Mr. Bartholomew?" asked Tom,
making a few notes on a scratch pad before him on the library
table.
"What do you say to three months?"
"Make it six, if you can," Tom said with continued briskness.
"It interests me. I'll do my best. And I want you to get your
money's worth."
"All right. Make it six," said Mr. Bartholomew. "But the
quicker you dig something up, the better for me. Now, that is the
first part of my proposition."
"All right, sir. And the second?"
"If you succeed in showing me that you can build and operate an
electric locomotive that will speed two miles a minute on a level
track and will get a heavy drag over the mountain grades, as I
said, as surely as two engines of the coal-burning or oil-burning
type, I will pay you a hundred thousand dollars bonus, besides
buying all the engines you can build of this new type for the
first two years. I've got to have first call; but the hundred
thousand will be yours free and clear, and the price of the
locomotives you build can be adjusted by any court of agreement
that you may suggest.
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