This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
130
BOUND TO BE AN ELECTRICIAN

at the newspaper. It was a local sheet of an issue a week old, and there were no special marks of any kind upon it.

Then the speculator turned his attention to the bottle.

"This is not a regular glue bottle, but a bottle made especially for—" he read an inscription moulded in the glass—"Farstock's Acme Pickle Works."

"Farstock's Pickle Works!" cried Franklin, suddenly. "Let me see, I've heard of them."

"No doubt; they are located in Paterson."

"I don't mean that, but—oh, I remember now! Mike Nolan has a brother working in that place."

"One of the boys who came here at midnight?"

"Yes, sir. It must be a bottle Mike's brother brought home some time."

"Bosh!" began Thomas Buckman. But a look from Belden Brice silenced him.

"That maybe true," said the speculator. He smelled of the bottle.

"No pickle smell about it, truly," he added. "It was a clean bottle when the glue was put into it. Buckman, supposing you send for this Mike Nolan?"

"Well—if you wish—"

"I do. Send the timekeeper after him," added Belden Brice as the superintendent started to go himself.

The man referred to was called in and dispatched