Which is Tink Tuttle's cue to open up on the story of his life. It's a soggy, unexcitin' yarn, most of it. As I'd kind of guessed by the way he talked, he wa'n't just an ordinary fact'ry hand. He'd been through some high class scientific school up in Massachusetts, where he'd lived before his father lost his grip. Seems the old man was a crackerjack boss machinist; but he got to monkeyin' with fool inventions, drifted from place to place, got to be a lunger, and finally passed in. The last four years in the fact'ry here had finished him. Tink had worked there, too, and his sister had married one of the hands. "It's the graveyard of the Tuttle family, this place is, I suppose," says Tink. "It got father, and it has almost got me. Some folks can breathe brass filings and carbon dioxide and thrive on it; but we can't. So I gave up and hid myself away in here to work out one of my silly dreams. Last spring I caught a bad cold, and Sister sent me West. There we have an uncle. She thought the change of climate might help my cough. It didn't do a bit of good; but it was out there that I picked up this option. That was when I saw a chance of making my dream come true. You saw what I've been building, didn't you, as we came through?" "I didn't notice," says I. "What is it, anyway?" [Illustration: "TUT, TUT," SAYS THE BOSS OF THE RESTORIUM.] "Wait until I light the lantern," says Tuttle. "Now come. This way. Don't hit your head on those wings. There!" And, say, it's a wonder I could walk right by a thing of that kind without gettin' next, even if it was kind of dark. But all I needs now is one glimpse of the outlines. "Oho!" says I. "A flyer! Say, every bughouse in the country is at work on one of them." "I suppose so," says he. "I may be as big a fool as any of them, too; but I think I know what I'm doing. At any rate, I've put my last dollar into it. That's why my sister is so----Well, she thinks I am----" "Yes, I suspicioned she was some sore on you," says I. "But what sort of a flyer is this, double or single winger?" "It's a biplane," says Tuttle, "on the Farnham type, only an improved model." "Of course it's improved," says I. "Tried her out yet!" "Hardly," says he. "I couldn't buy an engine, you see. That's what I've been waiting for. Say, you really think the Corrugated will take that option, do you? If they only would!" "You must be in a hurry to break your neck," says I. Before I left, though, he'd shown me all over the thing, explained how it was goin' to work, and did his best to get me as excited as he was. Also I makes him give me the full details of how he come to get this option, and I advises him if he does manage to cash it in for two thousand, to take an ax to his flying machine and hike out for some lung preservin' climate where he'll have a chance to shake that cough. "Thanks," says he, grippin' my hand and chokin' up. "You--you've been mighty good to me. I'll remember it."