in my aeroplane, and aid you all I can. Will
not promise to make your electric airship fly, though. Father sends
regards."

"Just rush that, please," he said to the telegraph agent, and the
latter, after reading it over, remarked:

"It'll rush itself, I reckon, being all about airships, and things
like that," and he laughed as Tom paid him.

Selecting several sizes of piano wire of great strength, to use as
extra guy-braces on the Butterfly, Tom re-entered his electric car,
and hastened back to the intelligence office, where he had left his
friend. He saw her standing at the front door, and before he could
alight, and go to her, Miss Nestor came cut to meet him.

"Oh, Tom!" she exclaimed, with a little tragic gesture, "what do you
think?"

"I don't know," he answered good-naturedly. "Does the new cook
refuse to come unless you do away with apple turnovers?"

"No, it isn't that. I have engaged a real treasure, I'm sure, but as
soon as I mentioned that you would take us home in the electric
automobile, she flatly refused to come. She said walking was the
only way she would go. She hasn't been in this country long. But the
worst of it is that a rich woman has just telephoned in for a cook,
and if I don't get this one away, the rich lady may induce her to
come to her house, and I'll be without one! Oh, what shall I do?"
and poor Mary looked quite distressed.

"Humph! So she's afraid of electric autos; eh?" mused Tom. "That's
queer. Leave it to me, Mary, and perhaps I can fix it. You want to
get her away from here in a hurry; don't you?"

"Yes, because servants are so scarce, that they are engaged almost
as soon as they register at the intelligence office. I know the one
I have hired is suspicious of me, since I have mentioned your car,
and she'll surely go with Mrs. Duy Puyster when she comes. I'm sorry
I spoke of the automobile."

"Well, don't worry. It's partly my fault, and perhaps I can make
amends. I'll talk to the new cook," decided the young inventor.

"Oh, Tom, I don't believe it will do any good. She won't come, and
all my girl friends will arrive shortly." Miss Nestor was quite
distressed.

"Leave it to me," suggested the lad, with an assumed confidence he
did not feel. He left the car, and walked toward the office.
Entering it, with Miss Nestor in his wake, he saw a pleasant-faced
Irish girl, sitting on a bench, with a bundle beside her.

"And so you don't want to ride in an auto?" began Tom.

"