future day.

Tom did not know the visitor whom he greeted in the library a
little later. The man, as Eradicate had said, was rather pale of
face, and certainly he was not very fleshy.

"Mr. Tom Swift, I think?" said the man, rising and holding out his
hand.

"That's my name. I don't believe I know you, though."

"No, I haven't your reputation," said the man, with a laugh that
Tom did not like. "We can't all be great inventors like you," and,
somehow, Tom liked the man less than before, for he detected an
undertone of sneering patronage in the words. Tom disliked praise,
and he felt that this was not sincere.

"I have called on a little matter of business," went on the man.
"My name is Harrison Boylan, and I represent Mr. Shallock Peters."

Instinctively Tom stiffened. Receiving a call from a
representative of the man against whom Mr. Damon had warned him
only a short time before was a strange coincidence, Tom thought.

"You had some little accident, when your motor boat and that of
Mr. Peters collided, a brief time ago; did you not?" went on Mr.
Boylan.

"I did," said Tom, and, as he motioned the caller to be seated Tom
saw, with a start, that some of the drawings of his photo