you, Mr. Forsythe?"
she asked, with her lovely and engaging enthusiasm. "I just knew it,
all the time."

"Yes, I did 'steal the secret'--if that is the way you put it--_pro
tem_, which means 'for the time being.' You are a nest of very
young idiots, and I trusted to that; but you opened your puppy eyes at
the time I hadn't counted on, with the help of Luttrell's scouting
nose." He paused, as if not right sure that he was going to tell about
everything, and as he looked at us we did look like a basket of little
silly puppies with mouths and eyes wide open--the Idol most of all.

"And now first, young man," said Father, turning to Mr. Douglass, left
eyelid drooping lower than usual, "I just want to say to you what I
think of you for leaving not only all the traces of such a valuable
discovery unprotected in a shed, but leaving your notebook and
drawings, too. Any other man but a Byrd of Byrdsville, would not have
trusted the book off his person a half minute, and would have
destroyed the traces of each experiment the minute it was done. Those
steel shavings were the most idiotic-looking things I ever saw, and
when I emptied the box it was with a groan at your foolishness. Just
the looks of 'em kept me from trusting you with my intentions. I
couldn't afford to run the risk of your carelessness, so I took the
whole thing and decamped with it."

"Oh, Father!" I gasped, beginning to get the untrustful feeling again.

"Hush, Phyllis," said the Idol, looking at Father like he was Jack,
the Giant-Killer, and just about as much interested as if it was not
his own tremendous fortune Father was telling about taking off with
him.

"I had been down in the garden to the garage to give the new car a
looking over, and I saw Rogers go into that shed and knew, from having
been told by Phyllis accidentally of the steel experiments, what was
happening. I followed him a little later, and saw your trustful
layout, exposed to the world as is the human nature of all Byrdsville.
Rogers is an expert and would run through your notebook and get the
whole thing in a few seconds. I knew that he would watch his time, try
out the experiments at the furnace, and get the patent while you were
deliberating about proceeding in a Chesterfieldian manner with an
injunction drawn slowly and literarily by your friend, Judge Luttrell.
Rogers was fully equipped by his association with me to do you
and--quick. I took no such chances as having you and the Jud