"

"I'll come to that, presently," replied Mr. Whitford. "In the first
place, we have been roundly laughed at in some papers for proposing
such a theory. And yet it isn't so wild as it sounds. In fact, after
seeing your airship, Tom Swift, I'm convinced--"

"That I've been smuggling?" asked Tom with a laugh.

"Not at all. As you have read, we confiscated some smuggled goods
the other day, and among them was a scrap of paper with the words
Shopton, New York, on it."

"Was it a letter from someone here, or to someone here?" asked Ned.
"The papers intimated so."

"No. they only guessed at that part of it. It was just a scrap of
paper, evidently torn from a letter, and it only had those three
words on it. Naturally we agents thought we could get a clew here.
We imagined, or at least I did, for I was sent to work up this end,
that perhaps the airships for the smugglers were made here. I made
inquiries, and found that you, Tom Swift, and one other, Andy Foger,
had made, or owned, airships in Shopton."

"I came here, but I soon exhausted the possibility of Andy Foger
making practical airships. Besides he isn't at home here any more,
and he has no facilities for constructing the craft as you have. So
I came to look at your place, and I must say that it looks a bit
suspicious, Mr. Swift. Though, of course, as I said," he added with
a smile, "you may be able to explain everything."

"I think I can convince you that I had no part in the smuggling,"
spoke Tom, laughing. "I never sell my airships. If you like you may
talk with my father, the housekeeper, and others who can testify
that since my return from taking moving pictures, I have not been
out of town, and the smuggling has been going on only a little
while."

"That is true," assented the custom officer. "I shall be glad to
listen to any evidence you may offer. This is a very baffling case.
The government is losing thousands of dollars every month, and we
can't seem to stop the smugglers, or get much of a clew to them.
This one is the best we have had so far."

It did not take Tom many hours to prove to the satisfaction of Mr.
Whitford that none of our hero's airships had taken any part in
cheating Uncle Sam out of custom duties.

"Well, I don't know what to make of it," said the government agent,
with a disappointed air, as he left the office of the Shopton chief
of police, who, with others, at Tom's request, had testified in his
favor. "This looked like a good