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300 "I haven't got it! I never had it."

"Did you take our clock, and afterward exchange it?" asked Tom, determined to solve part of the mystery, if not all.

"Yes, I had it, and I—I was coming back to borrow it again," answered the odd student.

"Borrow it?"' repeated Sid.

"Yes, that's all I did with your alarm clock. Oh, fellows, I didn't mean anything wrong. I'll tell you all about it."

"You'd better," said Phil, keeping a hold of the intruder's collar. "Come inside."

They entered the room, and Tom locked the door.

"Well?" asked Phil, suggestively, as he pointed out a chair to Lenton. "We're ready to hear you."

"I borrowed your clock to take a wheel out," said the odd student, simply.

"To take a wheel out?" repeated Sid, in amazement.

"Yes. In an alarm clock there is a certain size cog wheel that I could find nowhere else. Fellows, I am making a new kind of static electric machine, and I needed a certain sized wheel. I tried everywhere to get one, and I couldn't afford to pay for having one made. Then, one day, I happened to see your alarm clock in here. I thought, perhaps, that it would have in it the wheel I