“He has proven himself a good friend to us,” observed Tom.
“Grace Morgan doesn’t seem to have much use for Aldrich. I suppose he’ll try to break in and bid her good-by. I hear she is going away for a month or two.”
“She has gone already,” said Tom, with a conscious flush.
“Oh, is that so?”
“Yes, she left for Albion this morning, where her aunt resides. They take the steamer Olivia this evening down the coast. They are going to a Virginia Summer resort.”
“You seem pretty well informed as to Miss Morgan’s movements,” observed Ben with a wink.
“Why, yes, I saw her last evening,” replied Tom. “We are very good friends, you know, and I am naturally interested in her plans.”
Tom did not tell his chum that in his breast pocket reposed a dainty little card bearing the southern address of Grace, nor that she had made him promise to write her often about the progress he made with “that delightful wireless.”
“I say, there is another one of those balloons,” exclaimed Ben suddenly; “a red one this time. She’s lighting. No, she isn’t. Yes, she is, but in the water. Tom, I’m curious about the tags all of those balloons seem to have attached to them; I’m going to make a try to get one.”
Ben bolted from the tower. Tom went to the window to watch his manœuvres. Ben reached the shingly beach, and was reaching out into the water with a long tree branch, trying to hook in the now exhausted balloon without getting his feet wet.