"I got a medal for club swinging," said Biff diffidently. "I'll teach you any time you like. It's easy. Come right over to the gym on Tuesday and Friday forenoons. Those are ladies' mornings, and I've got nothing but real classy people at that." The entrance of Mr. Platt interrupted Biff just as he was beginning to feel at ease, and threw that young gentleman, who always appropriated and absorbed other people's troubles, into much concern; for Mr. Platt was hollow-eyed and sunken-cheeked from worry. His coat was very shiny, and his hat was shabby. The dusty and neglected drawing on his crude drawing-table told the story all too well. The engineering business, so far as Mr. Platt was concerned, seemed to be a total failure. Nevertheless, he greeted Mr. Bates warmly, and inquired after Mr. Burnit. "He's always fine," said Biff. "He had me come up here to meet him." "I should scarcely think he would care to come here after the unfortunate outcome of the work I did for him," said Mr. Platt. "You mean on old Applerod's Subtraction?" "You couldn't hardly call it the Applerod Addition, could you?" responded Jimmy with a smile. "That was a most unlucky transaction for me as well as for Mr. Burnit." Biff looked about the room comprehendingly. "I guess it put you on the hummer, all right," said he. "It don't look as if you done anything since." "But very little," confessed Mr. Platt. "My failure on that job hurt my reputation almost fatally." Biff gravely sought within himself for words of consolation, one of his fleeting ideas being to engage Mr. Platt on the spot to survey the site of Bates' Athletic Hall, although there was not the slightest possible need for such a survey. In the midst of his sympathetic gloom came in Mr. Ferris and Bobby. "Jimmy, how would you like to be chief construction engineer of the new waterworks?" asked Bobby, with scant waste of time, after he had introduced Ferris. Mr. Platt gasped and paled. "I think I could be urged, from a sense of public duty, to give up my highly lucrative private practice," he said with a pitiful attempt at levity, though his voice was husky, and his tightly clenched hand, where the white knuckles rested upon his drawing-table, trembled. "Don't build up too much hope on it, Jimmy; but if what we surmise is correct you will have a chance at it," and he briefly explained. "We're going right out there," concluded Bobby, "and I want you to go along to help investigate. We have to find some incriminating evidence, and you'd be more likely to know how and where to look for it than any of us." It is needless to say that Jimmy Platt took his hat with alacrity. Before he went out, with new hope in his heart, he turned and shook hands ecstatically with his sister. Still holding Jimmy's hand she turned to Bobby impulsively: "I do hope, Mr. Burnit, that this turns out right for Jimmy."