“Surely they must be in the shop some place,” suggested the stranger.
Again we could hear Mr. Tidd rummaging around, but it wasn’t any use. “No,” he said, “no, they ain’t here. I wonder if I could ’a’ left ’em down to the grocery.”
“What would you be doing with them at the grocery?”
“Nothin’ that I know of, but I might have tucked ’em under my arm and gone just the same. Like’s not I did. Wa-all, I’m sorry I can’t show ’em to you, but maybe they’ll turn up to-morrow.”
“I’ve got to leave on the late train,” said the stranger.
“Too bad,” said Mr. Tidd, his mind still wondering where his things were. “Too bad.” And with that he forgot all about the stranger and went out of the barn and off up the street talking to himself and scratching his head. The stranger looked after him and bit his lips; then he grinned like the joke was on him, and he went, too.
“Well,” I asked Mark, “what now?”
“We’ll put ’em right back,” he said, grinning, “and dad won’t know but what he just overlooked ’em.”
We fixed everything like it was, and then we went down-town to see what we could find out about the stranger.
He was in the hotel when we got there, and it was easy to get out of Bert Sawyer all he knew about him. His name was Henry C. Batten, and he lived in Pittsburg. He was a traveling man for the International Engineering Company, Bert thought, and later we found out it was so, because he left one of his cards in his room and Bert found it.