success, and he not only secured pictures of Ned and others over
the wire, as he talked to them, but he imprinted on wax cylinders,
to be reproduced later, the very things they said.

It was a day or so after he had demonstrated his new attachment
for the first time, that Tom received a most urgent message from
Mrs. Damon.

"Tom," she said, over the telephone, "I wish you would call.
Something very mysterious has happened."

"Mr. Damon hasn't come back; has he?" asked Tom eagerly.

"No--but I wish I could say he had. This concerns him, however.
Can you come?"

"I'll be there right away."

In his speedy monoplane Tom soon reached Waterford. Ned did not
accompany him this time.

"Now what is it, Mrs. Damon?" asked the young inventor.

"About half an hour before I called you," she said, "I received a
mysterious message."

"Who brought it?" asked Tom quickly.

"No one. It came over the telephone. Someone, whose voice I did
not know, said to me: 'Sign the land papers, and send them to us,