got my eye on him now, and I'll give him something to try his teeth on. He'll never get the best of me again--never!"

At that point, Pat chimed in. "What's all this fuss about a reporter?" she asked. "Is this Mr. McGinity, who just called, the same reporter who got the first news about the comet?"

"The same cheeky rascal," Olinski replied; "and now, apparently, he's bent on getting some advance information about our experiments in interplanetary radio communication."

"And aren't you going to oblige him, Uncle Henry?" Pat inquired.

Henry's eyebrows went up. "Oblige him? Certainly not."

"It will be the perfect imbecility on this reporter's part to try and get anything out of your Uncle, or me, on our latest discovery," Olinski explained. "The time is not yet ripe for any sort of public announcement."

"If he's a live-wire reporter," I offered, "and he seems to be just that, I'm afraid he'll go the limit in getting what he's after."

"Of course he will," Pat smiled. "Now that Uncle Henry has refused to be interviewed, he'll try some other means to get at him. Oh, the life of a reporter must be terribly thrilling! One reads so much about them in detective and mystery stories." She paused for a moment, and then continued, half musingly. "I wonder what he's like--this Mr. McGinity--this mono-maniac on the subject of news. Did you ever meet him, personally, Uncle Henry?"

Henry nodded, and replied grudgingly: "I met him personally, not long after he had tricked me into giving him the news of the comet. I was acting as toastmaster at the annual banquet of the Colonial Lords of Manors, and he was reporting the dinner. He tried to be friendly, but I squelched him good and plenty."

"Oh, how interesting!" Pat enthused. "Tell me, please! Is he young and good-looking?"

Henry's head jerked up. He did some rapid thinking, and then he lied firmly: "He's an oldish person, fat and awkward, and almost bald."

Pat smiled faintly, and did not have much to say after that. I divined that her little bubble of romantic anticipation had been pricked, but as she had no suspicions then, and had accepted Henry's description of the reporter as truthful, I passed it up. Considering Henry's position at the moment, I could not very well cross purposes with him and enlighten her. I happened to have 

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