"That's right. Say, Tom, it might be so. What are you going to do
about it?"

"I hardly know. If it was Jake Burke, alias Happy Harry, and his
crowd, including Appleson, Morse and Featherton, they're a bad
lot. I wouldn't want father to know they were around, for he'd be
sure to worry himself sick. He never really got over the time they
attacked me, and got the patent away. Dad sure thought he was
ruined then."

"Now if I tell him I was chloroformed again to-night, and that I
think it was Burke and his crowd, he'd be sure to get ill over it.
So I'm just going to keep mum."

"Well, perhaps it's the best plan. But you ought to do something."

"Oh, I will, Ned, don't worry about that. I feel much better now."

"How did it happen?" asked Ned, his curiosity not yet satisfied.

"I don't know, exactly. I was in the booth, talking to you, and
not paying much attention to anything else. I was adjusting and
readjusting the current, trying to get that image to appear on the
plate. All at once, I felt someone back of me, and, before I could
turn, that hand, with the chloroform sponge, was over my mouth and
nose. I struggled, and called out, but it wasn't much use."

"But they didn't do anything else--they didn't take anything; did
they, Tom?"