“Oh, well, I guess it’s all right then,” returned Mr. Swift, with an air of relief. “Tom is probably delayed in Shopton, getting what he wanted. But he should have telephoned, either here or to Mary. It isn’t fair to keep a young lady waiting like that.” “Miss Nestor said to be sure and tell him she wasn’t at all put out because he didn’t come,” said Mrs. Baggert. “She knows it must be some good reason that kept him away.” “I hope it is,” said Mr. Swift. “But it isn’t like Tom to stay away without sending some word.” As the hours passed and the young inventor neither returned nor communicated, the anxiety in his father’s mind grew, until, about midnight when the front door was heard to open, Mr. Swift cried: “Is that you, Tom? Where have you been? Why didn’t you send some word? And you have broken your promise to call on Mary!” “This isn’t Tom,” came in the voice of Ned Newton, who, of late, had been living at the Swift home. “But you don’t mean to tell me Tom isn’t here! I was just going to tell him he was in for a bad half hour the next time he called on Mary.” “No, Ned, Tom isn’t here,” said Mr. Swift, who had sat up past his usual retiring hour to meet his son when he should arrive. “And he isn’t over at Mary’s house, either.” “I know he isn’t there,” Ned said. “Helen and I stopped in on our way back from the pictures to find out why we hadn’t seen those two at the show. We found Mary a bit disturbed because Tom had neither called nor telephoned. That’s why I was going to tell him he was in for a bad time when next he sees Mary.” “But he isn’t here,” said Mr. Swift. “I can’t understand it. He went over to Shopton directly after supper, Mrs. Baggert says, and he hasn’t returned.” “Oh, yes, he came back,” Ned replied quickly. “I saw him.” “Where?” cried the aged inventor. “Just outside the big fence—on the landing field, in fact. Tom was on his way here then. He found what he wanted in some Shopton store, he told me, and I said he’d better hurry if he was going to keep his date with Mary. I was a bit late myself, so I left him and hurried on and he started for the house.” “Then something has happened to him, for he never got here!” exclaimed Mr. Swift. “Something has happened!” He was getting excited and Ned did not like that, for the aged man’s health was far from good. “Oh, not necessarily,” said Ned, in easier tones than his own feelings justified. “Tom’s all right, you can be sure of that. He knows how to take care of himself. Besides, how could anything happen at his own doorstep, so to speak? He was near the big fence.” “Well, I’m sure something has happened,” Mr. Swift declared. But Ned shook his head and smiled. “More than likely,” he said, “Tom went into his private office to leave what he had bought in Shopton. Once he was at his desk he saw something he had forgotten to do, or he was taken with a sudden idea, and he sat down to make some note about it before it slipped out of his mind.