h, but don't give
too much for it."

"I'll not. I fancy I can get it cheap."

Mr. Damon returned to the living-room, where he had first been
carried.

"I cannot thank you enough for what you have done for me," he said.
"I might have lain there for hours. Bless my very existence! I have
had a very narrow escape. Hereafter when I see anyone on a motor-cycle
I shall turn my head away. The memory will be too painful," and he
touched the plaster that covered a cut on his head.

"Mr. Damon," said Tom quickly, "will you sell me that motor-cycle?"

"Bless my finger rings! Sell you that mass of junk?"

"It isn't all junk," went on the young inventor. "I can easily fix
it; though, of course," he added prudently, "it will cost something.
How much would you want for it?"

"Well," replied Mr. Damon, "I paid two hundred and fifty dollars
last week. I have ridden a hundred miles on it. That is at the rate
of two dollars and a half a mile--pretty expensive riding. But if
you are in earnest I will let you have the machine for fifty
dollars, and then I fear that I will be taking advantage of you."

"I'll give you fifty dollars," said Tom quickly, and Mr. Damon
exclaimed:

"Bless my liver--that is, if I have one. Do you mean it?"

Tom nodded. "I'll fetch you the money right away," he said, starting
for his room. He got the cash from a small safe he had arranged,
which was fitted up with an ingenious burglar alarm, and was on his
way downstairs when he heard his father call out:

"Here! What do you want? Go away from that shop! No one is allowed
there!" and looking from an upper window, Tom saw his father running
toward a stranger, who was just stepping inside the shop where Mr.
Swift was constructing his turbine motor. Tom started as he saw that
the stranger was the same black-mustached man whom he had noticed in
the post-office, and, later, in the restaurant at Mansburg.

CHAPTER V.

MR. SWIFT IS ALARMED

Stuffing the money which he intended to give to Mr. Damon in his
pocket, Tom ran downstairs. As he passed through the living-room,
intending to see what the disturbance was about, and, if necessary,
aid his father, the owner of the broken motor-cycle exclaimed:

"What's the matter? What has happened? Bless my coat-tails, but is
anything wrong?"

"I don't know," answered Tom. "There is a stranger about the shop,
and my father never allows that. I'll be back in a minute."

"Take your time," advised the somew