"Don't listen to him. He doesn't know what he is saying!" exclaimed the former submarine boat agent. "It's not my charm. He's crazy!"
"Oh, am I?" thought Tom, with a grim look on his face. "Well, we'll see about that, Mr. Berg," and, putting the charm back in his pocket, Tom swung his machine toward home, while the agent and the banker entered the new institution.
"So they're getting chummy," mused Tom. "Andy and Berg were friends when Andy shut me up in the submarine tank, and now Berg comes here to do business, and Foger and his associates are trying to put the old bank out of business. I wonder if there's any connection there? I must keep my eyes open. Berg is an unscrupulous man, and so is Andy's father, to say nothing of the red-haired bully himself. He had nerve to deny that was his charm. Well, maybe I'll catch him some day."
Tom spent a busy week making new adjustments to his electric car, changing the gear and providing for heavier fuses. He was planning for another trip on the road, as the time for the great race was drawing near, and he wanted the mechanism to be in perfect shape.
One evening, as he was preparing for a short night trip to Mansburg, where he had promised to call for Miss Nestor, Tom left his machine standing in the road in front of the house, while he went back to get a robe, as it threatened to be chilly.
As he came back to enter the car, he saw some one standing near it.
"Is that you, Ned?" he called. "Come, take a spin."
Hardly had he spoken than there sounded from the machine a whirr that told of the current being turned on.
"Don't do that!" cried Tom, knowing at once that it could not be Ned, who never meddled with the machinery.
A blinding flash and a loud report followed, and Tom saw some one leap from his car, and try to run away. But the figure stumbled, and, a moment later the young inventor was upon him, grappling with him.