er Mr. Nestor was roiled. He thought I was playing a joke. I'll
have to explain. But how?"

"By letter," said Mr. Damon.

"Too slow. I'll send a wireless," decided Tom, and he began the
composition of a message that cost him considerable in tolls before he
had hit on the explanation that suited him.

"That ought to clear the atmosphere," he said when the wireless had
shot his message into the ether. "Whew! And to think, all this while,
Mary and her folks have believed that I tried to play a miserable joke
on them! My! My! I wonder if they'll ever forgive me. When I get hold
of Eradicate--"

"Better teach him to read if he's going to do up love packages,"
interrupted Mr. Damon, dryly.

"I will," decided the young inventor.

The Bellaconda stopped at Panama and then kept on her way south. Soon
after that she ran into a severe tropical storm, and for a time there
was some excitement among the passengers. The more timid of them put on
life preservers, though the captain and his officers assured them there
was no danger.

Tom and Mr. Titus, descending from the deck, whence they had been
warned by one of the mates, were on their way to their stateroom,
walking with some difficulty owing to the roll of the ship.

As they approached their quarters the door of a stateroom farther up
the passage opened, and a head was thrust out.

"Will you send a steward to me?" a man requested. "I am feeling very
ill, and need assistance."

"Certainly," Tom answered, and at that moment he heard Mr. Titus utter
an exclamation.

"What is it?" asked Tom, for the man who had appealed for help, had
withdrawn his head.

"That--that man!" exclaimed the contractor. "That was Waddington, the
tool of our rivals."

"Waddington!" repeated Tom, with a look at the now closed door. "Why,
the bearded man has that stateroom--the bearded man who so nearly lost
the steamer. He isn't Waddington!"

"And I tell you Waddington is in that room!" insisted the contractor.
"I only saw the upper part of his face, but I'd know his eyes anywhere.
Waddington is spying on us!"

Chapter IX

The Bomb

Tom Swift and Mr. Titus withdrew a little way down the corridor, around
a bulkhead and out of sight of any one who might look out from the
stateroom whence had come the appeal for help. But, at the same time,
they could keep watch over it.

"I tell you Waddington is in there!" insisted Mr. Titus, hoarsely
whispering.

"Well, perhaps he may be,"