“The soap man, of course, won’t know that we’re there.”
“You told the truth,” I waggled. “He won’t know that I’m there, for I don’t intend to be there.”
My companion gave me another odd grin.
“What’s your scheme?” I inquired, curious. [[117]]
“Let me give it some more thought,” he laughed.
Coming to the Ricks’ mail box I fished out a letter that the rural carrier had just delivered.
“Is it from Aunt Polly?” Scoop inquired, squinting over my shoulder.
“It can’t be,” I said, staring at the Atlanta, Georgia, postmark.
However, the letter was from Aunt Polly. And when we had read it, the four of us, and were made to understand the situation, our minds were suddenly depressed. For the absent-minded inventor was lost. He had vanished from Springfield in the time that it had taken Tom’s aunt to get there. And now, in possession of certain vague clews, the little old lady was trying desperately to locate her brother in Atlanta.
“If you get word from him, wire me immediately,” was the letter’s concluding injunction.