Who was this foreigner and what was his game?
CHAPTER VIII
A SECRET LISTENER
Tom Swift, in a crisis, was not one to think first and act afterward. Usually he did his acting first, and this was one of those instances.
Like a flash of fire it ran through his mind that now was the best time to ascertain what object the foreigner could have in breaking the regulations and entering Tom’s private office.
With the end in view of settling the matter then and there, Tom dashed across the room and out of the rear door by which Barsky had left. The young inventor had a glimpse of the Russian hastening along just ahead of him. He was making good time, too. But Tom Swift, too, was a sprinter. In spite of all the machines for locomotion that Tom had invented, he could still run.
He caught up to Ivan Barsky and seized that individual by the arm.
“Hey! Wait a minute!” cried Tom, not very dramatically, perhaps, but effectively.
“Eh? What eet iss?” The man seemed to hiss the words in his peculiar way. There was a frightened look on his face and, also, one of innocence, real or assumed. “You weesh to see me, Mr. Swift?” asked Barsky.
“It might be the other way around,” announced Tom grimly as he faced the man. “It rather looks as if you wanted to see me—going into my office when I wasn’t there. Don’t you know that’s against the rules?”
“Pardon—I did not know eet.”