Queerly as this man acted, Tom Swift could not have left either him or his car on the road and in the lurch. He would have felt himself to be as mean as the half intoxicated chauffeur from the Norwalk garage. Besides, the young fellow knew without her telling him that Mary would expect him to do all he could in the emergency, and Mary’s opinion was, of course, of the first importance to Tom. While the stranger sat on the bank of the ditch with his baggage about him, not offering to lift his hand to aid, the young inventor planned and put into execution a method of rescuing the mired automobile. He had a small ax in the tool box of the electric runabout. With this he cut a green, tough sapling about as big around as his shank. This he used to pry the nose of the stranger’s motor-car out of the mud. He used the pry to break down the edge of the ditch, too, and finally he used a couple of nonskid chains to tackle the two cars together, and with the power of his own machine, used very skilfully, he finally dragged the other car to the highway. Meanwhile the owner of that car sat placidly, smoking little, strong-smelling cigarettes which he rolled himself with dextrous fingers, and watched the work quite impersonally. Mary disapproved of cigarettes in any case and she whispered to Tom that she didn’t know but she was sorry that she had urged him to help the strange man! “Ach! Brawn is not to be scorned,” said the man, when the motor-car stood upon its four wheels on the road. “It is not so good like brains—no, no. But if one has not the brains and the learning, it is well to be a mechanic, yes?” Mary grew rosy-red at that. She considered it an insult to Tom Swift. She might have said something sharp, but her friend interposed, with a grin: “They say that a man with brains alone on a desert island will live where a dull man, possessing only strength, would die. But I bet a stupid man with good muscles will live better in the haunts of civilization than a penniless man of brains. What would you do if you had been marooned here without money and nobody to help you?” “Ach! You are, perhaps, a philosopher?” grumbled the man. “You don’t have to possess much book education to be that,” laughed Tom. “Well, sir, you get in the runabout with the young lady. She can drive. I’ll try to bring your car along behind. Where are you stopping in Shopton?” he added, as the man began to gather his various bags and bundles and pack them into the runabout until there was scarcely room for the girl to reach the pedals with her feet. “Is there not a hotel, no?” “The Shopton House. A commercial hotel.” “I will try it. This is one vacation. I have but one thing to do while I am avay from New York. I need the change and fresh air, or I vould never come to a place like this in answer to any call. No!” “I wonder what and who he is,” thought Tom Swift, as Mary finally started the runabout and he, himself, climbed into the other car.