"Bless my insurance policy, Tom!" cried Mr. Damon, "but I'd
hate to trust to your apparatus if my house caught."

"Don't blame you," Tom assented. "But I'll do the trick yet!
This is only a starter!"

During the next two weeks the young inventor worked hard in his
laboratory, Mr. Swift sometimes helping him, but more often Koku
and Eradicate. Mr. Baxter had recovered sufficiently to leave the
Swift home. But though the chemist seemed well physically, his
mind appeared to be brooding over his loss.

"If I could only get my secret formulae back!" he sighed, as he
thanked Tom for his kindness. "I'm sure Field and Melling have
them. And I believe they got them the night of the fireworks
blaze; the scoundrels!"

"Well, if I can help you, please let me," begged Tom. And then
he dismissed the matter from his mind in his anxiety to hit upon
the right chemical mixture for putting out fires from the air.

One afternoon, at the end of a week in which he had been busily
and steadily engaged on this work, Tom finally moved away from
his laboratory table with a sigh of relief, and, turning to
Eradicate, who had been helping him, exclaimed:

"Well, I think I have it now!"

"Good lan' ob massy, I hopes so!" exclaimed the colored man.