“He is just the chap I have been worrying about!” exclaimed the young inventor. “Why worry about him?” demanded Ned, while even Mr. Swift looked at his son in some surprise. “Because it worries me to know that I’ve seen a man but am unable to place him. Do you have any idea, Ned, who he is?” “That is what I was asking you—or attempting to,” returned Ned. “He knows seaplanes, at least,” observed Tom. “I must have seen him—or his picture, perhaps.” “He was a complete stranger to me,” declared Ned. “His face is familiar to me. And I am a bit scary of him,” confessed Tom. “He looked the new boat over as though he understood everything about her. Humph! There are some unpatented parts that I would not care to have stolen.” “The man could scarcely steal them _in his eye_,” remarked Mr. Swift. “I am not so sure of that. But it may be that because of trouble we have had in the past, I am suspicious with little cause.” “You have caught that from Koku,” laughed Ned Newton. “Maybe the boy is more than half right,” rejoined Tom, referring to the giant. “Carney, in the shops, has said he ‘had a feeling in his bones’ that there was a ‘jinx’ on the boat. Humph! I have to say I don’t believe in such things—” “Whether you do believe in evil spirits or not?” interposed Ned. “Well, that may be so. After all, admitting the existence of bad luck is to encourage it, they say. But that has nothing much to do with the dapper little man with the spike mustache and goatee and the flower in his buttonhole. He was spick and span——” “Like most Frenchmen? That is one reason why I almost always like the French,” declared Ned. “I’d just like to know who he is,” repeated Tom. “Anyway, I am going to ask you, Ned, to increase the special guards about the cove over there where the plane rests. I am not yet ready to give other people the benefit of my discoveries.” “So Koku is not guard enough?” chuckled Ned Newton. “He has to sleep once in a while. Besides, a well dressed man awes Koku a whole lot,” and Tom smiled. “And this chap you speak of could put it all over the innocent savage.” They decided to have a special number of guards who should remain at the cove where the launching had taken place, at least, until the time of the try-out. And Tom and his men strained every effort to complete the flying boat and send it into the air as quickly as possible. Tom kept three shifts a day at work. But only the most skilled of his men could be trusted on the job, so the crews were small. However, there was not an hour of the twenty-four save from Saturday evening until Monday morning when the hammers did not ring or the steam drills puff or the riveters clatter on the _Winged Arrow_.