This engine was a source of great expense to him, as well as the chief point in a fine scheme.  He had made brass rails for it—­sufficient to extend about the four sides of the studio—­something like seventy feet.  He had made most handsome passenger-cars with full equipment of brakes, vestibules, Pintsch gas, and so on, and had painted on their sides “The Great Pullman Line.”  One day, when we were quite friendly, he brought from his home all the rails, in a carpet-bag, and gave an exhibition of his engine’s speed, attaching the cars and getting up sufficient steam to cause the engine to race about the room at a rate which was actually exciting.  He had an arrangement by which it would pick up water and stop automatically.  It was on this occasion that he confided what he called his great biograph scheme, the then forerunner of the latter day moving pictures.  It was all so new then, almost a rumor, like that of the flying machine before it was invented.

“I propose to let the people see the photographic representation of an actual wreck—­engine, cars, people, all tumbled down together after a collision, and no imitation, either—­the actual thing.”

“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.

“Well, I’ve got it planned automatically so that you will see people jumping out of the cars and tumbling down on the rocks, the flames springing up and taking to the cars, and all that.  Don’t you believe it?” he added, as I smiled at the idea.  “Look here,” and he produced a model of one of the occupants of the cars.  He labored for an hour to show all the intricate details, until I was compelled to admit the practicability and novelty of the idea.  Then he explained that instantaneous photography, as it was then called, was to be applied at such close range that the picture would appear life size.  The actuality of the occurrence would do the rest.