Chapter XIX. Another Flight - Page 2

acts, if not your own. But I am very busy. I have an important test to make for the government, and my time is fully occupied. I am afraid I shall have to bid you good-morning and--"

"But won't you give me a chance to--" began the president.

"Now, the less we discuss this matter the better!" interrupted Tom. "Lydane, as you call the man with the gold tooth didn't really do anything to me nor any great harm to any of my possessions, as far as I can learn. His career is a closed book-- a book with muddy covers!" and the young inventor laughed.

"Oh, well, if you look at it that way, there is nothing further for me to say" said Mr. Gale stiffly. "I understood-- But hasn't my partner, Mr. Ware, seen you?" he asked Tom quickly.

"No. And I don't care to see him."

"Oh, then that accounts for it," was the quick answer. "Well, if you regard the matter as closed I suppose we should also. We are not to blame for what Lydane does when he is no longer in our employ, and we repudiate anything he may do, or may have done."

This struck Tom, afterward, as being rather a queer remark, but he did not think so at the time.

The truth was that the young inventor wished very much to try out a new device on his noiseless aeroplane and wanted to get rid of Mr. Gale before doing so. So he did not pay as much attention to the remarks of the president as, otherwise, he might have done.

It was not until after Mr. Gale had taken his leave and Tom had finished the particular work on which he was engaged when the president of the rival company came in, that the young man did some hard thinking. And this thinking was done after he had received a telephone call from Mary Nestor, asking, if by any chance, he had beard anything like a clew as to the whereabouts of her father.

Tom had been obliged to tell her that he had not. Everything possible was being done to find the missing man but he had disappeared as completely as though he had ridden on his bicycle into the crater of some extinct volcano on the meadow, and had fallen to the bottom.

An effort was made to trace him through an automobile association which had a large membership. That is, the members were asked to make inquiries to ascertain, if possible, whether any one had heard of an unreported accident--one in which Mr. Nestor might have been carried away by persons who accidently ran him down.

But this came to naught, and the police and other authorities were at a loss how farther to proceed. It was a theory in some quarters that Mr. Nestor was perfectly safe, but that he was out of his mind, and was either wandering around, not knowing who he was, or was, in this condition, detained somewhere, the persons having him in charge not realizing that he was the missing man so widely sought.

This belief was a relief to