“Well, we’ll just have to lay that aside for a while,” Tom said the next day, when Ned again came to pay a visit.  “Now, what do you say to tackling, with me, that recoil problem on the aerial warship?”

“I’m ready, if you are,” Ned agreed, “though I know about as much of those things as a snake does about dancing.  But I’m game.”

The two friends walked out toward the shed where Tom’s new craft was housed.  As yet Ned had not seen it.  On the way they saw Eradicate walking along, talking to himself, as he often did.

“I wonder what he has on his mind,” remarked Ned musingly.

“Something does seem to be worrying him,” agreed Tom.

As they neared the colored man, they could hear him saying: 

“He suah did hab nerve, dat’s what he did!  De idea ob askin’ me all dem questions, an’ den wantin’ t’ know if I’d sell him!”

“What’s that, Eradicate?” asked Tom.

“Oh, it’s a man I met when I were comin’ back from de ash dump,” Eradicate explained.  One of the colored man’s duties was to cart ashes away from Tom’s various shops, and dump them in a certain swampy lot.  With an old ramshackle cart, and his mule, Boomerang, Eradicate did this task to perfection.

“A man—­what sort of a man?” asked Tom, always ready to be suspicious of anything unusual.

“He were a queer man,” went on the aged colored helper.  “First he stopped me an’ asted me fo’ a ride.  He was a dressed-up gen’man, too, an’ I were suah s’prised at him wantin’ t’ set in mah ole ash cart,” said Eradicate.  “But I done was polite t’ him, an’ fixed a blanket so’s he wouldn’t git too dirty.  Den he asted me ef I didn’t wuk fo’ yo’, Massa Tom, an’ of course I says as how I did.  Den he asted me about de fire, an’ how much damage it done, an’ how we put it out.  An’ he end up by sayin’ he’d laik t’ buy mah mule, Boomerang, an’ he wants t’ come heah dis arternoon an’ talk t’ me about it.”

“He does, eh?” cried Tom.  “What sort of a man was he, Rad?”

“Well, a gen’man sort ob man, Massa Tom.  Stranger t’ me.  I nebber seed him afo’.  He suah was monstrous polite t’ ole black Eradicate, an’ he gib me a half-dollar, too, jest fo’ a little ride.  But I aint’ gwine t’ sell Boomerang, no indeedy, I ain’t!” and Eradicate shook his gray, kinky head decidedly.

“Ned, there may be something in this!” said Tom, in an excited whisper to his chum.  “I don’t like the idea of a mysterious stranger questioning Eradicate!”

CHAPTER VI THE AERIAL WARSHIP

Ned Newton looked at Tom questioningly.  Then he glanced at the unsuspicious colored man, who was industriously polishing the half-dollar the mysterious stranger had given him.

“Rad, just exactly what sort of a man was this one you speak of?” asked Tom.

“Why, he were a gen’man—­”

“Yes, I know that much.  You’ve said it before.  But was he an Englishman, an American—­or—­”