“Well, Mary,” went on the young inventor, with a smile, “I’m glad to say that, for once, rumor got ahead of itself. Nothing very much happened. Just a few chemicals went off unexpectedly.”
“But you’re cut!” Mary gasped, as she saw the blood on Tom’s cheek. “Oh!”
“Just a scratch from a broken test tube,” he explained.
Then Mr. Burch, with a fine sense of what was fitting, said:
“Mr. Trace, since we have concluded our business here and have made arrangements for separating our friend Bart from twenty thousand dollars, we might as well get out and——”
He did not say it, but the inference was obvious that he wanted to leave the two young people alone. Tom seemed to sense this for he said:
“Just a moment, please. I want to understand a little more about this wager.”
“You’ll understand it better when your dad has to take some of his big profits and hand over twenty thousand to us,” chimed in Mr. Trace. It was true that the Swift Company had been very profitable of late, thanks to some of Tom’s inventions.
“But still I don’t like the idea of losing twenty thousand, or even ten,” said Tom, with a smile. “And I don’t intend to lose it, either, gentlemen!” he concluded.
“I’m glad you are backing me up, Tom,” murmured his father. “How soon will the triple traveler be done?”