"How do you propose to do it?" I asked.
"Well, that's the thing," he said, banteringly. "Now, how do you suppose I'd do it?"
"Hire a railroad to have a wreck and kill a few people," I suggested.
"Well, I've got a better thing than that. A railroad couldn't plan anything more real than mine will be."
I was intensely curious because of the novelty of the thing at that time. The "Biograph" was in its infancy.
"This is it," he exclaimed suddenly. "You see how realistic this engine is, don't you?"
I acknowledged that I did.
"Well," he confided, "I'm building another just like it. It's costing me three hundred dollars, and the passenger-cars will cost as much more. Now, I'm going to fix up some scenery on my roof—a gorge, a line of woods, a river, and a bridge. I'm going to make the water tumble over big rocks just above the bridge and run underneath it. Then I'm going to lay this track around these rocks, through the woods, across the bridge and off into the woods again.
"I'm going to put on the two trains and time them so they'll meet on the bridge. Just when they come into view where they can see each other, a post on the side of the track will strike the cabs in such a way as to throw the firemen out on the steps just as if they were going to jump. When the engines take the bridge they'll explode caps that will set fire to oil and powder under the cars and burn them up."
"Then what?" I asked.