r all night. It might be a little
difficult to get near enough to tree-toads and frogs, but I believed I
could manage it.

"However, when I returned home I was thinking of Mary.

"It was early in the afternoon, and I was trying to decide what would
be the best time to visit the Armat house. The monkeys had not ceased to
worry me dreadfully, and I had begun to think that when bees buzz around
their hives they must certainly say something interesting to each other.
Then a note was brought to me from Mary. I tore it open and read:

"'I want you to come to see me this afternoon. If you possibly can,
come about four o'clock, and bring that speaking-tube with you. Miss
Castle has been here nearly all the morning, and some things she has
said to me have worried me very much. Please come, and do not forget
the ear-trumpet.'

"This she signed merely with her initials.

"Mary's note drove to the winds monkeys, bees, and the rest of the
world. What had that wretched mischief-maker, that Castle girl, been
saying to her? I did not believe that the mind of Mary Armat was
capable of originating an unfounded suspicion of me; but the mind of
Sarah Castle was capable of originating anything. She had doubtless
suspected that there must be some extraordinary reason for my desire
to have people talk to me through a tube in a language I did not
understand. She had been too impatient to wait until she could try her
German upon me, and she had gone to Mary and had filled her mind with
horrible conjectures. One thing was certain: no matter what else
happened, I must not take that translatophone to Mary. After what
Sarah had said to her there could be no doubt that she would make me
speak to her in a foreign language through the tube. It would be easy
enough: she could give me a French book and tell me to read a few
pages. No matter how badly I should pronounce the words, they would
reach her ears in pure English!

"And then!

"I took my translatophone from the cabinet in which I kept it. The
easiest way to destroy it was to throw it at once into the fire; but
that would fill the house with the smell of burning rubber. No; it was
only necessary to destroy the internal movements. I unscrewed the long
mouth-piece, and gently withdrew from it the little membrane-covered
cylinder, not six inches in length, which formed the soul of my
invention. I took it in my hand and gazed upon it. Through its thin,
flexible, and almost transpar