“Well, I don’t like to boast,” said Tom with a smile, “but all of my inventions have been successful.  They don’t need any aid from Mr. Peters, thank you.”

“But this one!” went on the visitor eagerly, “this one about some new kind of telephone,” and he motioned to the drawings on the table.  “Has that been a success?  Excuse me for having looked at the plans, but I did not think you would mind.  Has that telephone been a success?  If it has not perhaps Mr. Peters could form a company to—­”

“How did you know those drawings referred to a telephone?” asked Tom, suspiciously, for the papers did not make it clear just what the invention was.

“Why, I understood—­I heard, in fact, that you were working on a new photo telephone, and—­”

“Who told you?” asked Tom quickly.

“Oh, no one in particular.  The colored man who sent me here mentioned—­”

“Eradicate!” thought Tom.  “He must have been talking.  That isn’t like him.  I must look into this.”

Then to his caller he said: 

“Really, you must excuse me, Mr. Boylan, but I don’t care to do any business with Mr. Peters.  Tell him, with my thanks, that there is really nothing doing in his line.  I prefer to exploit my own inventions.”

“That is your last word?”

“Yes,” returned Tom, as he gathered up the drawings.

“Well,” said Mr. Boylan, and Tom could not help thinking there was a veiled threat in his tones, “you will regret this.  You will be sorry for not having accepted this offer.”

“I think not,” replied Tom, confidently.  “Good-day.”

The young inventor sat for some time thinking deeply, when his visitor had gone.  He called Eradicate to him, and gently questioned the old colored man, for Eradicate was ageing fast of late, and Tom did not want him to feel badly.

It developed that the servant had been closely cross-questioned by Mr. Boylan, while he was waiting for Tom, and it was small wonder that the old colored man had let slip a reference to the photo telephone.  But he really knew nothing of the details of the invention, so he could have given out no secrets.

“But at the same time,” mused Tom, “I must be on guard against these fellows.  That Boylan seems a pretty slick sort of a chap.  As for Peters, he’s a big ‘bluff,’ to be perfectly frank.  I’m glad I had Mr. Damon’s warning in mind, or I might have been tempted to do business with him.”

“Now to get busy at this photo telephone again.  I’m going to try a totally different system of transmission.  I’ll use an alternating current on the third wire, and see if that makes it any better.  And I’ll put in the most sensitive selenium plate I can make.  I’m going to have this thing a success.”

Tom carefully examined the drawings of his invention, at which papers Mr. Boylan had confessed to looking.  As far as the young inventor could tell none was missing, and as they were not completed it would be hard work for anyone not familiar with them to have gotten any of Tom’s ideas.