nce at the table. "Not a
bit of salt. I forgot it. Alice, dear, just slip across the hall and
borrow some from Mrs. Dalwood."

Humming, in the lightness of her heart, a little tune, Alice crossed
to the apartment of their neighbor, not pausing after her first knock
at the rear kitchen door.

She heard a rattling among the pots and pans, and naturally supposed
Mrs. Dalwood was there.

"May we have some salt?" Alice called, as she entered the kitchen,
but the next moment she drew back in surprise and fear, for a strange
man, rising suddenly from under the sink, confronted her.

He, too, seemed startled.

"Oh--Oh!" gasped Alice. "Isn't Mrs. Dalwood here?"

"I--I believe not," stammered the man. "I--I'm the plumber--there's a
leak----"

"Oh, excuse me," murmured Alice, but even in her embarrassment she
could not help thinking that the man looked like anything but a
plumber. She backed out of the kitchen, after picking up a salt
cellar, and was more startled as she observed the man following her.

CHAPTER XI

RUSS IS WORRIED

Alice was racking her brain to recall where she had seen the man
before. If he was a plumber, as he said he was, it might be that he
had been in the apartment house on other occasions to repair breaks.
But Alice was not certain.

"And yet I've seen him before, and lately, too," she thought. The
girls was in the hall, now. The man, who seemed ill at ease, had
followed and stood near.

"The leak wasn't a bad one; it is repaired now," he said.

"I--I didn't know Mrs. Dalwood was out," faltered Alice. And then, as
the man turned to go down the stairs, like a flash it came to her who
he was.

"The man Russ had the trouble with that day--Simp Wolley--who tried
to get his patent!" Alice almost spoke the words aloud.

"The--the leak is fixed," the man went on.

"You--you--" stammered Alice. But the man did not stay to hear, but
hurried downstairs.

Alice burst in on her sister and father.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "That man--he--he was in the Dalwood kitchen!"

"What man?" asked Mr. DeVere, starting forward.

"The one who was after Russ's patent! Quick, can't you get him?"

Mr. DeVere ran into the hall, but the man had gone. The Dalwood
kitchen door was still open, and a hasty look through the apartment
showed none of the family could be at home.

"Could he have stolen the patent?" cried Alice, when the excitement
had quieted down.

"We can't tell until Russ comes home," repl