he youth who has figured in another series of mine, called the
"Dick Hamilton Series," starting with "Dick Hamilton's Fortune."
Dick had come to New York for the purpose of making an investment
and had had an encounter with a sharper, who had tried to sell him
some worthless stocks.

"Please give me the story," pleaded Larry, and he got the tale in
detail, and what was more, he and Dick Hamilton became so friendly
that the young millionaire promised to keep the story from all other
reporters; so that Larry scored another beat, much to his own
satisfaction and the satisfaction of his friends.

"Keep on and you'll be at the top," said the city editor, and then
he went on: "Here is something else you might look into, Larry. It
might make a fine thing for the Sunday supplement. You can go up
there, get the yarn, and you needn't come back to-day. Write it up
the first thing in the morning."

"What sort of story is it?" asked Larry.

"Why, it's a postal, from an old German, I take it, who says he has
invented a flying machine."

"I guess he's about the only one in ten thousand who has been
successful then," answered Larry, smiling.

"Oh, I don't suppose it amounts to anything," went on Mr. Emberg.
"But it may make a good story to let the old gentleman talk, and
describe the machine. The public likes stories about flying machines
and queer inventors, even if the machines don't work. Get a good
yarn, for we need one for the first page of the supplement. I'll
sent Sneed, the photographer, up later to get some pictures of it."

The city editor handed Larry a postal card, poorly written and
spelled, on which there was a request that a reporter be sent to a
certain address on the East Side, to get a story of a wonderful
invention, destined to revolutionize methods of travel.

It was not the first time Larry had been sent on this sort of an
assignment. Once he had gone to get a story of a new kind of gas
lamp a man had invented, and the thing had exploded while he was
watching the owner demonstrate it. Luckily neither of them were
hurt.

Larry found the address given on the postal was in a dilapidated
tenement, seemingly deserted, and standing some distance away from
other buildings.

When he got there he ran into a reporter named Fritsch, who worked
on a German newspaper.

"Dot inventor vos mofed avay," said the German reporter. "Some
beoples told me he vos krazy."

"Is the house vacant?" asked Larry.

"I dink so