rt went home, got his breakfast, told his mother a trunk had got lost
and he might have to go down the road to look it up, returned to the
express office, found Darry Haven and McCarthy on duty, gave them some
routine directions, and left the place.

Darry Haven followed him outside with a rather serious face.

"Bart," he said anxiously, "Mrs. Colonel Harrington drove down here a
few minutes ago."

"About the trunk, I suppose."

"Yes, and she was wild over it. Said you had got rid of the trunk to
spite her, because she had had some trouble with your mother."

"Nonsense! Anything else?"

"If the trunk don't show up to-day, she says she will have you
arrested."

Bart shrugged his shoulders, but he was consciously uneasy.

"What did you tell her, Darry?" he inquired.

"I put on all the official dignity I could assume, but was very polite
all the time, informed her that mislaid, delayed and irregular express
matter were common occurrences, that the company was responsible for its
contracts, counted you one of its most reliable agents, and assured her
that very possibly within twenty-four hours she would find her trunk
delivered safe and sound at its destination."

"Good for you!" laughed Bart. "Keep an eye on things. I'll show up, or
wire, by night."

"Any clew, Bart?"

"I think so."

Bart went straight to the home of Professor Abner Cunningham.

That venerable gentleman--antiquarian, scientist and profound
scholar--had a queer little place at the edge of the town where he
raised wonderful bees, and grew freak squashes inside glass molds in
every grotesque shape imaginable.

He was a friend to all the boys in town, and Bart joined him without
ceremony as he found him out on the lawn in his skull cap and dressing
gown, studying a hornets' nest with a magnifying glass.

"Ah, young Bartley--or Bartholomew, is it?" smiled the innocent-faced
old scientist jovially. "I have a new volume on nomenclature that gives
quite an interesting chapter on the Bartholomew subject. It takes you
back to the eleventh century, in France--"

"Professor, excuse me," interrupted Bart gracefully, "but something very
vital to the twentieth century is calling for urgent attention, and I
wanted to ask you a question or two."

"Surely. Glad to tell you anything," assured the professor, happiest
always when he was talking, and willing to talk for hours with anyone
who would listen to him. "Come into the library."

"I really haven