“First hide all _this,_” he murmured, moving his head so as to indicate the fragments of his engine. They lay all confused, a heap of spars, cogs, wheels, fans, and what not, a puzzle to the science of mechanics. “Don’t let them know a word about it,” he said. “Say I had an accident--that I was sleep-walking, and fell from a window--say anything you like, but promise to keep my secret. In a week,” he murmured dreamily, “it would have been complete. It is the second time I have just missed success and fame.” “I have not an idea what your secret may be,” said Barton; “but here goes for the machine.” And, while the wounded man watched him, with piteous and wistful eyes, he rapidly hid different fragments of the mechanism beneath and among the heaps of rubbish, which were many, and, for purposes of concealment, meritorious. “Are you sure you can find them all again?” asked the victim of misplaced ingenuity. “Oh yes, all right,” said Barton. “Then you must get me to the street before you bring any help. If they find me here they will ask questions, and my secret will come out.” “But how on earth am I to get you to the street?” Barton inquired, very naturally. “Even if you could bear being carried, I could not lift you over the boarding.” “I can bear anything--I will bear anything,” said the man. “Look in my breast, and you will find a key of a door in the palings.” Barton looked as directed, and, fastened round the neck of the sufferer by a leather shoe-tie, he discovered, sure enough, a kind of skeleton-key in strong wire. “With that you can open the gate, and get me into the street,” said the crushed man; “but be very careful not to open the door while anyone is passing.” He only got out these messages very slowly, and after intervals of silence broken by groans. “Wait! one thing more,” he said, as Barton stooped to take him in his arms. “I may faint from pain. My address is, Paterson’s Kents, hard by; my name is Winter.” Then, after a pause, “I can pay for a private room at the infirmary, and I must have one. Lift the third plank from the end in the left-hand corner by the window, and you will find enough. Now!” Then Barton very carefully picked up the poor man, mere bag of bones (and broken bones) as he was. The horrible pain that the man endured Barton could imagine, yet he dared not hurry, for the ground was strewn with every sort of pitfall. At last--it seemed hours to Barton, it must have been an eternity to the sufferer--the hoarding was reached, and, after listening earnestly, Barton opened the door, peered out, saw that the coast was clear, deposited his burden on the pavement, and flew to the not distant police-station.