ver relegated to any employee.

Ned had once worked himself in the bank, and naturally he knew many of
its employees as well as the officials. With his back to the general
waiting room, he sat at the vice president's desk discussing some minor
matter. Only a railing divided the vice president's enclosure from the
long settee on which waiting customers of the bank were seated.

Ned knew that there were two men directly behind him, whispering
together; but he paid no attention to them until he heard this phrase:

"It's time to explode in just five hours; then good-night to that
invention, whatever it is."

This statement might mean almost anything--or nothing. Ordinarily Ned
Newton might not have paid any consideration to the words. But
"invention" was a term that he could not overlook. His mind then was
fixed upon Tom's invention almost as closely as the mind of the young
inventor himself.

Ned turned around slowly, as though idly, indeed, and tried to see the
faces of the two men behind him. One was a small, neatly dressed man of
professional appearance. He wore a Vandyke beard and eyeglasses. The
other's face Ned could not see; but as they both rose just then and
strolled toward the door of the bank he could observe that the fellow
was big and burly.

Ned wheeled to his friend, the vice president, and asked:

"Who are those men, Mr. Stanley? Do you know them?"

The pair were just going out through the revolving door. The vice
president craned his neck for a look at them.

"Don't know the small man, Ned. But the other is named O'Malley, I
believe. Somebody introduced him here and he gets a check cashed
occasionally. Not a customer of the bank."

At that moment the name "O'Malley" did not mean anything to Ned Newton.
But he bade his friend good-bye and went out after the two men. They
had disappeared.

Rad was in the electric runabout, waiting for him. The words spoken by
O'Malley (Ned thought it must have been he who spoke of the invention
because of his deep voice) continued to disturb Ned's thought.

"Rad," he said, as he got into the runabout, "did you ever hear the
name O'Malley?"

"Sure has," declared the colored man. "And it's a bad name and a bad
man owns it."

"Do you mean that?" exclaimed the financial manager of the Swift
Construction Company, with increasing apprehension. "Who is he?"

"Why, Mr. Newton, don't you 'member dat man?"

"Who is he?" repeated Ned.

"Dat Andy O'Malley is de on