Page:Air Service Boys Flying for France.djvu/20

Rh He was very angry at being approached by an agent of a Government with which the United States was likely to go to war at any time since the Lusitania was sunk. He told this Adolph Tiessig what he thought of his nerve, and I guess must have shown him the door in a hurry, for I know father's temper."

"And what happened next, Tom?"

"Well, father was so busy just then on another experiment that he neglected to take proper precautions, a fact he is bitterly sorry for now. The time to shut and lock the stable door is when the horse is still safe inside. But then you know inventors are not like ordinary people, Jack; they live up in the clouds much of the time; and my father was always a great hand for putting off things."

"Too bad, Tom, for I can begin to see this was one time that failing got him into trouble. So the paper was stolen, was it?"

"No question about it, Jack, for father found his room had been entered, and the safe in which he kept many of his private papers, forced open and rummaged. But as luck would have it, he carried one of the papers in his pocket at the time, so that although the thief took the other away with him, it may be possible that even the clever airplane builders over on the Rhine or on Lake Constance, will