When once his mind was made up the young electrician did not hesitate to act. He had soon passed through the window, which was but a few feet from the ground, and now found himself in a handsomely furnished library.
Franklin heard the murmur of voices in the hall beyond, and then a hand on the knob of the door. He had barely time to conceal himself behind a large revolving bookcase when Fipher and Montague Smith entered.
"I think you handle her too well, Fipher," Montague Smith was saying. "She will never break down under such kind treatment."
"I don't handle her well at all," growled Nathan Fipher. "I do everything I know how, outside of starving or striking her, to bring her to terms. But it ain't any use—she won't give in."
"I think I could manage her if I tried," returned the part owner of the battery works. "What has she to say when you approach her?"
"Sticks to it that Wilbur didn't give her the drawings, and that she doesn't know anything of the inventions."
"But he said she had them."
"I know he did. But what are you going to do about it when she denies it?"
Montague Smith bit the ends of his elegantly-waxed moustache nervously.
"It's a confounded shame, Fipher! I might
