"I haven't got it! I never had it."
"Did you take our clock, and afterward exchange it?" asked Tom, determined to solve part of the mystery, if not all.
"Yes, I had it, and I—I was coming back to borrow it again," answered the odd student.
"Borrow it?"' repeated Sid.
"Yes, that's all I did with your alarm clock. Oh, fellows, I didn't mean anything wrong. I'll tell you all about it."
"You'd better," said Phil, keeping a hold of the intruder's collar. "Come inside."
They entered the room, and Tom locked the door.
"Well?" asked Phil, suggestively, as he pointed out a chair to Lenton. "We're ready to hear you."
"I borrowed your clock to take a wheel out," said the odd student, simply.
"To take a wheel out?" repeated Sid, in amazement.
"Yes. In an alarm clock there is a certain size cog wheel that I could find nowhere else. Fellows, I am making a new kind of static electric machine, and I needed a certain sized wheel. I tried everywhere to get one, and I couldn't afford to pay for having one made. Then, one day, I happened to see your alarm clock in here. I thought, perhaps, that it would have in it the wheel I
