A curious look came over Mr. Swift's face. He passed his hand across his brow.
"I am beginning to remember something I have been trying to recall ever since I became ill," he said slowly. "It is coming back to me. Those plans—in the library—I fell asleep, but before I did so I hid those plans, Tom!"
"You hid those plans!" Tom fairly shouted the words.
"Yes, I remember feeling a drowsy feeling coming on, and I feared lest some one might see the drawings. I got up and put them under the window, in a little, hollow place in the foundation wall. Then I came back in through the window again, and went to sleep. Then, on account of my illness, just as I once before forgot something, and thought the minister had called, I lost all recollection of them. I hid those plans."
Tom leaped to his feet. He rushed to the place named by his father. Soon his triumphant shout told of his success. He came hurrying back into the house with a roll of papers in his hands.
And there were the long-missing plans! damp and stained by the weather, but all there. No enemy had them, and Tom's secret was safe.
"Now I can accept the Government offer!" he cried. And a few weeks later he made a most advantageous deal with the United States officials for his patents.
Dr. Gladby explained that Mr. Swift's queer action was due to his illness. He became liable to lapses of memory, and one happened just after he hid away the plans. Even the hiding of them was caused by the peculiar condition of his brain. He had opened the library window, slipped out with the papers, and hastened in again, to fall asleep in his chair, during the short time Tom was gone.
"And Andy Foger never took them at all," remarked Mary Nestor, when Tom was telling her about it a few days afterward.
"No. I guess I must apologize to him." Which Tom did, but Andy did not receive it very graciously, especially as Tom accused him of trying to destroy the Humming-Bird.