re does he live?" asked Mr. Nestor.

"Down on Clay Street," and the officer mentioned the number. "He lives
all alone, so he told me. He's some sort of an inventor, I guess. At
least I judged so by his talk. Do you want an ambulance, Doctor?" he
asked the physician.

"No, I think he's coming around all right," was the answer. "If we had
an auto we could send him home."

"I'll take him in the runabout," eagerly offered Tom. "But if he lives
all alone will it be safe to leave him in his house?"

"He ought to be looked after, I suppose," the doctor stated. "He'll be
all right in a day or so if no complications set in, but he'll be weak
for a while and need attention."

"Then I'll take him home with me!" announced Tom. "We have plenty of
room, and Mrs. Baggert will feel right at home with some one to nurse.
Bring the runabout here, will you please, Ned?"

As Ned darted off to run up the machine, the man opened his eyes again.
For a moment he did not seem to know where he was or what had happened.
Then, as he saw the lurid light of the flames which were now dying away
and realized his position, he sighed heavily and murmured:

"It's all over!"

"Oh, no, it isn't!" cheerfully exclaimed the doctor. "You will be all
right in a few days."

"Myself, yes, maybe," said the man bitterly, and he managed to rise to
his feet. "But what of my future? It is all gone! The work of years is
lost."

"Burned in the fire?" asked Tom, wondering whether the man was a major
stockholder in the company. "Didn't you have any insurance? Though I
suppose you couldn't get much on a fireworks plant," he added, for he
knew something of insurance matters in connection with his own business.

"Oh, it isn't the fire--that is directly," said the man, in the same
bitter tones. "I've lost everything! The scoundrels stole them! And
I--Oh, never mind!" he cried. "What's the use of talking? I'm down and
out! I might just as well have died in the fire!"

Tom was about to make some remark, but the doctor motioned to him to
refrain, and then Ned came up with the runabout. At first Josephus
Baxter, which was the name of the man who had been rescued, made some
objections to going to Tom's home. But when it was pointed out that he
might lapse into a stupor again from the effects of the smoke poisons,
in which event he would have no one to minister to him at his lonely
home, he consented to go to the residence of the young inventor.

"Though if I do la