The German lad finished his preparations for astonishing Nestorville with elaborate care. Having adjusted his derby at what he considered a fetching angle, he prepared to descend and to conquer.

“Maype so I cotch idt an heiress,” he said to himself, “undt den I bodder no more midt der convertible sissage machine.”

Heiny was perfectly right when he concluded that he was about to astonish Nestorville. The porch of the hotel was fairly well occupied when he descended, and the street was also pretty well thronged. The sight of the German youth in his tight-fitting check clothes, gaudy socks, rainbow tie and yellow gloves created an amount of attention which gratified Heiny to the full.

“For der first time dey see idt in dis penighted village vot clothes vears a chentleman,” he said to himself.

His first jar came when a small boy stepped up to him.

“Say, mister?” said the urchin.

“Vel, vot idt iss, mein poy?” asked Heiny.

“Wot cher sellin’?”

“Sellin’? I do not comprehension you.”

“What you advertisin’ then. Squirts Savory Soap or Odles Orient Oats?”

“Mein leedle poy, I adtvertise idt nuddings.”

“Nor sell nothing?”

“Nein. I am a chentleman of leisure undt an inventor.”

“Oh, climb back in der cage,” advised the rude urchin, and amidst a shout of laughter from his cronies he dashed off.

“Climb py der cage?” muttered young Dill, looking about. “I see no cage, undt efen if I didt I vouldn’t climb in—no, sir, not vile I haf nice room midt conversationings thrown in free of charge for nuddings.”

“On a trip?” asked a tall gangling village youth of the “half-baked” age, approaching the German boy.

“No, I am oudt on der ocean sufferin’ seferely midt sea sickness,” responded Heiny with withering scorn, and the village youth subsided.

“I vonder vot is der madder midt me?” thought young Dill to himself, seeing that he was the observed of all observers in and about the hotel. “Oh, vell! I subbose dot a vell-dressed man is not often seen hereabouts.”

He sat down in a chair on the porch and before long a cadaverous-looking individual, with lank, black hair and a solemn countenance seated himself beside him.

“A stranger in our city, sir, I take it?” began the newcomer.

“Yes, dey all seem to dink I am stranger dan anydings dot dey see yet,” rejoined Heiny good-naturedly.

“A natural ignorance, my dear sir. You, I take it, come from the centers of cosmopolitanism?”

“Vell, I don’t know dot town. I come from New York,” was the German youth’s reply.

“A noble city, sir.”

“Vell, I don’d know about dot. Dey vouldn’d buy mein convertible sissage machine.”

“What, you are an inventor?”

“Ches, an inventor at large—(undt schmall)——” declared young Dill, throwing out his chest proudly.

“You must make a great deal of money.”

“Oh, enough to lif py meinself—enough for dot! I don’d vant for nuddings. Der best in clothes or foodt is none too goodt for me,” and the German swelled with pride. He did not notice the glitter that had come into the eyes of the cadaverous man at the mention of money. He eyed young Dill cunningly and then asked:

“A guest of this hotel, sir?”

“Ches, I stop here. Idt iss nodt a badt blace but der pickles iss no good,” said young Dill loftily, as if he had been used to hotels all his life.

The cadaverous man leaned over toward the German youth confidentially.

“If you carry large sums with you I need not warn you of the danger of thieves.”

“Oh, no, I am careful midt mein money,” young Dill assured his new-found friend, “I alvays schleep midt idt in der toe of vun of mein shoes,”

“Ah, indeed. May I ask why?”

“Vell, you see, ker-ooks dey look under der pillow undt in der clothing but dey nefer dink of lookin’ py der toes of mein shoes. A goodt scheme, ain’d idt?”

“Excellent. Good evening, my dear young man. I have much enjoyed our conversation.”

And the cadaverous-looking man bowed himself out, looking back as he went with a covert smile on his face.

“Thank you, my Teutonic friend,” he said to himself as he made his way across the office. “I’m much obliged to you for confiding to ‘Deacon’ Terry the place where you hide your roll. To judge by your clothes it must be a fat one. I think I’ll investigate your shoes to-night.”

So thinking, “Deacon” Terry, the notorious hotel thief, examined the register, made sure of the location of “the inventor’s” room and then politely requested that his baggage be transferred to a room on that floor, as the room he had been assigned to did not please him. His request was at once granted, for the “Deacon” possessed an impressive, not to say ministerial manner, which gave not the least clue to his real character.

Without appearing to feel the slightest concern in them, young Dill watched, with intense interest, the movements of Hank Nevins and Miles Sharkey, following the conclusion of the evening meal. Matters were further complicated in the German youth’s mind by the fact that they did not approach him, as he had expected, but instead, engaged the landlord’s son in conversation.

By adroitly maneuvering, young Dill succeeded in getting into a position where a pillar in the lobby hid him from view and afforded a capital screen behind which to listen to the formation of the plot which he was sure was going forward. He had learned earlier in the day that Sam Hinkley worked at the High Towers workshop and was considerably surprised when he saw the boy allow himself to be drawn into talk with Hank and the man the German youth knew as “Der stranger.”

“I’ll bedt idt er pretzel dot der iss some more crooked pisiness going forvarts,” he thought to himself as he watched Sam in deep conversation with the pair he already knew plotted mischief to the Electric Monarch. “Does two fellers iss so crooked dey could behind a corkscrew hide. I vatch undt lisden. Maybe I find idt oudt some more. If I do, I tell der poys by der Electric Monarch and den maybe dey give me a chob.”

With this idea in mind, he worked his way to the position he adjudged most favorable for his eavesdropping. Now young Dill was no friend to sneaky ways, but in the present case he felt that the end justified almost any means. He knew enough to realize that the Boy Inventors’ project was threatened by two men whom he instinctively felt were bad characters, even if he had not overheard their talk of the afternoon.

He had not listened long when all his suspicions were confirmed. With cunning skill Miles Sharkey was working on Sam Hinkley’s hatred of Ned Nevins to enlist Sam in the plot against the Electric Monarch. But to young Dill’s chagrin, he could not get close enough to hear all their conversation without risking being discovered. He had, therefore, to content himself with fragmentary bits. But such as these were, they were quite sufficient to inform him that Sam Hinkley was ready to turn traitor to his young employers.

“Then you’ll do it?” were the last words the German youth heard Miles address to Sam Hinkley.

“You can depend on me to fix the young sneak,” he heard Sam answer. “But when do I get my money?”

“When we get ours from the party I told you about. Is that satisfactory?” asked Miles, who appeared to act as spokesman.

“That’s all right,” was Sam’s reply, as he strolled away, and the two conspirators exchanged triumphant glances.

“Now dey come py me, I bedt you my life,” muttered the young German to himself as he flopped into a chair and appeared engrossed in a newspaper which happened, by good luck, to be lying there. Sure enough it was not many minutes before he heard a honey voice addressing him.

It was Hank. He expressed great regret for the occurrences of the morning.

“I don’t know what got into me,” he said, “anyhow I apologize very sincerely.”

“Oh, dot’s all righdt,” said young Dill easily, “und at dot I don’d dink dot you hadt very much on me.”

Hank agreed, and then after some more conversation he approached the subject that young Dill knew he had been leading up to all the time.

“You know those Boy Inventors, as they call them, up at High Towers?” he asked.

“Vell, I can’t say dot I know dem,” replied Heiny truthfully, “but I like to get a chob by dem.”

“Oh, looking for a job, are you?”

“Ches, I needt some money preddy badtly und I don’d mindt telling you dot I aindt particular how I get idt alretty.”

Hank fell into the trap readily. “This fellow’s easier than I thought,” he chuckled to himself. He proceeded to “feel out” the German youth a little more, and then made him a confidant in their plans, young Dill appearing to fall in readily with all their schemes.

Briefly the plot was this. Young Dill was to present himself at High Towers in the morning. Seemingly he was to be in quest of work. But his real mission was to take advantage of any opportunity that might present itself to disconnect one of the wires leading from the storage batteries to the motor. Failing in this, he was to injure the Electric Monarch in any way that he could, Hank having previously found out that young Dill understood considerable about machinery.

To all this the young German appeared to agree. In fact he was even enthusiastic.

“I guess I make more money on dis chob dan I vouldt oudt of mein sissage machine,” he said.

“Money!” exclaimed Hank. “Why, if you can pull this thing off right you’ll be able to buy a new suit every ten minutes.”

“Den I’m your man,” said young Dill.

Soon after this he went to bed. He would have liked to go to High Towers that night but he knew that he was watched. Moreover, as there was to be no attempt made to injure the machine till the next morning, he would not have accomplished any useful purpose, except perhaps, to scare the plotters away, which was the last thing he wished to do.

Before turning in, the German youth expended a few loving caresses on the convertible sausage machine, and then, placing it on the floor, he tumbled into bed and soon his snores proclaimed that at least one guest of the Hinkley House was enjoying peaceful slumber.

It was after midnight that a door down the corridor from the German youth’s room was cautiously opened and the cadaverous head and lank black locks of “Deacon” Terry protruded themselves into the dimly lighted passage. Apparently satisfied that every one was in bed, the “Deacon” slipped out of his room and tip-toed down the passage to young Dill’s door.

Bending, he listened at the key-hole. The nasal music which greeted his ears caused a satisfied smile to creep over his features. He fumbled in his pocket for a minute and then a jingling sound proclaimed that he had found what he was in search of—a bunch of skeleton keys.

With a deftness born of long practice the “Deacon” inserted one of the keys in the lock of young Dill’s door. There was the slightest of clicks and then the Deacon cautiously pushed the portal open. An instant’s pause, and then with the gliding motion of a snake, he slipped through the door.

“Snap!”

A sound like the firing of a pistol was followed almost immediately by a most appalling yell.

“Help! Ouch! Help!”

The next moment a figure came flying into the corridor. Attached to it was what at first sight appeared to be a gigantic spider. Down the corridor the figure fled, yelling at the top of his voice.

All through the hotel, doors could be heard opening and shouts and cries rang through the entire structure from office to garret!

“It’s fire!”

“There’s murder!”

“Call the police!”

“Thieves!”

“Fire! Fire!”

Mingling with these and a dozen other frantic cries from alarmed guests came the clanging of gongs as the night clerk, aroused from his doze in the office, sprang to the emergency alarm and pulled it. This redoubled the confusion.

In the midst of the pandemonium there came skyrocketing madly down the stairs into the half-dressed crowd swarming in the lobby, an extraordinary and alarming figure. It was that of a man clad only in shirt and trousers upon whose face was stamped the wildest terror. Frightened cries broke from his lips and the horrified onlookers perceived that, attached to him, behind, was a gigantic spider, or such at least the thing appeared.

With a last frantic cry the victim of the repulsive-looking creature gave a bound and fell headlong on the floor of the crowded lobby. As he did so there was a metallic clang, the “spider” was detached from his waistband and the excited crowd saw that it was in reality a metallic device of some sort.

It was just at this moment that the fire department and the police department, the latter consisting of two men and a chief, with a resplendent star of pie-plate proportions, burst into the thronged lobby. The chief rushed up to the prostrate man and raised him to his feet.

The instant his eyes encountered the other’s face, the village functionary gave a cry of astonishment.

“It’s ‘Deacon’ Terry, the crook!” he exclaimed, with a firm grip on the man. “There’s a description and a reward out for his capture.”

“What have you been up to now?” asked one of the policemen, but before the discomfited thief could reply, a strange figure in red and white striped pajamas shoved its way through the excited throng that jammed the lobby.

“I can tell you dot. Dot feller dere vos try to make a robberies midt mein room. Mein burglar trap—dot used to be a sissage machine—makes a capture by him.”

“Who in thunder are you?” demanded the chief, regarding the wild-looking German youth with amazement.

“I am Heiny Pumpernick Dill, inventor at large (undt schmall) of der Convertible Sissage Machine. Dot iss, idt used to be a sissage machine—now I make idt of him a burglar trap.”

“Say, is this fellow crazy or what?” exclaimed the chief, who had been unable, not unnaturally, to make head or tail of this jargon.

“I think I can explain, chief,” said the night clerk, coming forward. “It’s plain enough that this fellow,—the ‘Deacon’ as you call him,—tried to get into Mr. Dill’s room. He succeeded, but instead of robbing Dill he was seized by this what-you-may-call it.”

He indicated the sausage machine lying in a heap of spider-like limbs and springs on the floor near-by.

“Dot is not a what-you-mighdt-call-idt——” began young Dill indignantly, “idt is a sissage machine. I pudt him der door py ven I go to mein schleep. I suppose dot dis feller got ger-grabbed by idt ven he come to take all der money dot I told him early in der efenin’ I hadt in mein shoes.”

It was some time before things quieted down and the notorious “Deacon” was taken off to the village lock-up. Young Dill was the recipient of many congratulations on the success of his “burglar-trap.” But somehow they did not please him. As he returned to his interrupted slumbers he muttered to himself:

“I am a preddy bum inventor alretty. I don’d know meinself vot I invent. Here I go to vurk undt make idt a fine sissage machine undt now I haf to turn idt into a burglar-trap—Himmel!”