Part 86 (1/2)

”Come on, uncle,” he cried; ”I want to show you the three plane round”

”Beauties, Tom,” said Uncle Richard a few minutes later ”Tom, my lad, you're my dear sister's son, and the queerest boy I ever met”

”Am I, uncle?” said Tom dryly

”Yes, lad”

”Then hooray! let's get to work I want to see the moon with the new plane h as it is, boy”

Toave his uncle a coripped in a clasp which made him wince

CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN

There was a heavy post one lanced at the letters, she screwed up her face and turned her eyes upon Tom, to shake her head as much as to say, ”What work, ork!”

For to write a letter was a terrible effort to Mrs Fidler She could write a beautifully clear hand, as the names of the contents of her jampots bore witness, but, as she confided to Tom, it was ”such a job to find the next word to set down”

One of the letters was so big and legal-looking in its broad blue envelope, whose ragged edges told that it was lined with linen, that it took Tom's eye at once; but Uncle Richard merely slit it open, peered inside, and laid it beside his plate till theup into the laboratory, Tom,” he said then, and left the rooht Toht of Pete at the end of the lane watching hi at his heels, but only to turn off and walk away

”Does that ht Tom, as he went into the mill, and he shook his head as he felt that Pete was a hopeless case

To his surprise, on entering the laboratory, where Uncle Richard was seated before the bureau with the great letter before hie_ Pete Warboys banging about again He is alatching this place, or waiting for you to go and play with hiht with him, uncle,” said Tom dryly

”Well, that does see him over, but I doubt it”

”Yes, uncle, so do I,” said To

”I feel in doubt,” continued Uncle Richard, ”whether I ought not to have tried to prove whether it was really he who helped to break in here

But there: I only want to be left in peace, and aout otten Ever seen these before?”

He drew so envelope and held them out

”The other papers that were stolen from that drawer, uncle?”

”Yes,” said Uncle Richard, looking very stern as he took them back and threw them into the receptacle, which he then locked up, and pocketed his keys ”Which is it, Tom--repentance, or because they are of no use to the thief?”