CHAPTER VIII

LANNY STUDIES STEAM ENGINEERING

They were putting down a two-block stretch of new macadam on the Lafayette Street extension. A bed of cracked stone, freshly sprinkled, was receiving the weighty attention of the town's biggest steam roller as Lanny White strolled around the corner. Chug-chug-chug! Scrunch-scrunch-scrunch! Lanny paused, hands in pockets, and looked on. Back and forth went the roller, the engineer skillfully edging it toward the center of the road at the end of each trip. Further down the street, where the workmen were tearing up the old dirt surface, a second and much smaller roller stood idle, its boiler simmering and purring. Lanny smiled.

"Me for the little one," he muttered, as he walked toward the smaller roller. The engineer was a huge, good-natured looking Irishman with a bristling red mustache, so large that he quite dwarfed the machine. He had a bunch of dirty cotton waste in