“When did you boys leave New York?” one of the men asked, in a moment.
“About midnight,” was the reply.
“And you’ve come two hundred miles in three hours?” asked the man, incredulously. “I don’t believe it!”
“Our machines,” Ben answered, very civilly indeed, “are capable of making the distance in two hours.”
“Well,” the farmer went on, “the other fellow said he left New York about dark, and he didn’t get here until something like an hour ago. He lit right about where you are now.”
“Where is he now?” asked Ben.
“Why, he went on just as soon as he tinkered up his machine.”
The boys glanced at each other significantly, and then Ben asked:
“What kind of a looking man was he?”
“He looked like a pickpocket!” burst out the farmer, “with his little black face, and big ears, and hunched up shoulders. And he was, I guess,” he continued, “for we heard him sneaking around the barn before we came out of the house.”