n retained, making it a charming resort for a meal.

"Mr. Damon will like it," said Mary. "Especially the big fireplace,"
and she pointed to one on which burned a blaze of hickory wood. "He'll
bless everything he sees."

"And cause the waiter to look at me as though I had brought in an
escaped inmate from some sanitarium," laughed Tom. "No use talking, Mr.
Damon is delightfully queer! Now what do you want for dessert?"

"Let me see the card," begged Mary. "I fancy some French pastry, if
they have it."

Tom gazed idly but approvingly about as she scanned the list. The
sound of the rumbling and the higher-pitched voices had gone on
throughout the entire meal, and now, as comparative silence filled the
room, the clatter of knives and forks having ceased, Tom heard more
clearly what was being said behind the screen.

"Well, I tell you what it is," said the man whom Tom mentally dubbed
Mr. High. "We got out of that blaze mighty luckily!"

"Yes," agreed he of the rumbly voice, whom Tom thought of as Mr. Low,
"it was a close shave. If it hadn't been for his chemicals, though,
there would have been a cleaner sweep."

"Indeed there would! I never knew that any of them could act as fire
extinguishers."

Tom seemed to stiffen at this, and his hearing became more acute.

"They aren't really fire extinguishers in the real sense of the word,"
went on the other man behind the screen. "It must have been some
accidental combination of them. But in spite of that we put it all over
Josephus Baxter in that fire!"

"What's this? What's this?" thought Tom, shooting a glance at Mary and
noting that apparently she had not heard what was said. "What strange
talk is this?"

CHAPTER IX

SUSPICIONS

"What's that?" exclaimed Mary Nestor, giving such a start as she sat
opposite Tom at the restaurant table that she dropped the bill of fare
she had been looking over.

A crash had resounded through the room, but it spoke well for the state
of Tom's nerves that he gave no indication that he had heard the noise.
It was caused by a waiter when he dropped a plate, which was smashed
into pieces on the floor. The noise was startling enough to excuse Mary
for jumping in her chair, and it seemed to put an end to the strange
talk of "Mr. High" and "Mr. Low" back of the screen, for after the
crash of china only indistinct murmurs came from there. But Tom Swift
did not cease to wonder at the import of the talk about chemicals,
fire, a