"Gee," replied the latter, "he jumped me so quick, I didn't know what was up before he was out of the room and I was locked in."
"Don't blame him," broke in Bob, "it wasn't his fault."
"Well, the next time I send you up here, just deliver your message through the door, do you understand?"
"I certainly do. I won't give him a chance to get hold of me again," declared the dwarf, rubbing his arm.
Bob was much cast down as they went out. "But I won't give up," he thought as he was undressing. "But, confound it, I've got to do something pretty soon for I'm not going to make that job pan out nearly as long as I thought I could."
Before he slept that night, he had resolved upon a bold stroke for liberty, which he was resolved to put into execution at the very first opportunity.
About eight o'clock the next morning, Bob realized that his chance had come. King was watching the cell while he was standing about three feet to one side. Suddenly, Bob drew back his right arm and before King could defend himself, he struck. The blow was a jim dandy, as Bob afterward expressed it. It caught King fairly on the jaw and he went down like a log, knocking over the tank as he fell. Bob quickly leaned over him and took the key of the laboratory from his pocket, where he had seen him put it several times.
"Now, if I can only get out," he thought as he unlocked the door and stole softly up the stairs.
CHAPTER XIII.
BOB'S ESCAPE.
Bob's heart beat wildly as he crept up the stairs, for he had resolved to let no one stop him if he could help it, knowing that it would go hard with him if he again fell into King's hands. He reached the top of the flight without hearing any one and quickly passed through the dining room to the front hall, and for the second time since his imprisonment, he was at the front door. The hall had a vestibule and just as he succeeded in getting the inner door open he heard a key turn in the outer door, and before he had time to dodge back, it swung open and Reed entered.