“Oh, you see he’s working on a new invention.”
“What sort?” asked Larry, thinking he might get a story out of it.
“Don’t ask me,” cried the servant, with a laugh, for she evidently took Larry for some boy on an errand. “It’s all about wheels and levers and steam and electricity. As near as I can get at, it’s a plan to make an automobile out of a tea kettle.”
“Don’t you suppose I could see the professor?” asked the young reporter.
“Well, you can try,” said the girl. “The laboratory is that small white building down at the far end of the yard. Go down there, and walk right in. If you knock he’ll never answer. Mrs. Allen has just fed him his breakfast, and perhaps he’ll talk to you a little.”
Larry decided this was the only way of securing what he wanted, so he made his way to the laboratory, and, remembering the injunction, entered the door and walked in.
He found himself in a large room, fairly filled with machinery and appliances of all kinds. Overhead there were shafts and pulleys, while all about the sides were benches, lathes, wheels, levers, handles, and springs of various sorts.
Down in one corner was an elderly gentleman, in rather an old and ragged suit, at work over a bench. He did not look up as Larry entered, but called out:
“Come here and give me a hand with this. I’m in a hurry.”
Larry looked around to see if the professor could be speaking to anyone else, but, finding that he was the only one in the room besides the scientist, the lad concluded he was the one addressed.