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'But if the sun feels warm, is not that as good as if it were really warm? 'For you it may be, answered Kanker, 'but not for me. I care only for truth, and I don't choose to be warmed by anything I don't believe in. That is the reason I carry a sun-umbrella. Well, will you let me have your book? 'It is no more use to me, said Oscar, gloomily.
Kanker," he went on, "it is out of the question to claim your barn is worth three thousand dollars." "Oh, is it?" sneered the farmer. "Well, I didn't ask you to come here and make kindling wood of it! That was your doings, and you've had your fun out of it. Now you can pay the piper, and I'm here to make you pay!" And he brought the gun around in a menacing manner.
"I guess we'll have to make a regular search of it. I did hope we'd find him out at the Kanker farm. But since he isn't there, nor anywhere about, as far as we can tell, we've got to try some other plan." "You mean notify the authorities?" asked Mr. Damon. "Hardly that yet. But I'll get some of Tom's friends who have machines, and we'll start them out on the trail.
The next thing to do was to learn if he had really started for the Kanker farm. "For if he didn't go there," suggested Ned, "it will look funny for us to go out there making inquiries about him. And it may be that after he got that message Tom decided not to go."
He was not quite facing the window, but stood sideways towards it, and looked at Oscar askance. The skin of this boy's face was coarse and rough, and seemed as thick as orange-peel. 'What is your name? asked the strange boy, after a while. Oscar told him what it was. 'What an absurdly old-fashioned name! said the boy, contemptuously. 'I have a better name than that my name is Kanker!
'Your touching yourself would prove nothing to me, you know, said Kanker. 'Well, you seem to exist. Where are your father and mother? 'They are not here, answered Oscar. 'They are gone long ago. 'I don't believe it. Where did they go to? 'Over there, said Oscar, pointing across the sea. 'Nonsense! Do you mean they are drowned? 'No. They are gone to a country over there.
Do you mean that young whipper-snapper with his big traction engine?" demanded Mr. Kanker. "Look here!" blustered Mr. Damon, "Tom Swift is neither a whipper-snapper nor is his machine a traction engine. It's a war tank." "That doesn't matter much to me," said the farmer, with a grating laugh. "It looks like a traction engine, though it smashes things up more'n any one I ever saw."
'They are no bigger than they ought to be, Kanker answered, holding them up and looking at them admiringly. 'I use them to touch things with. I never believe in anything that I haven't touched. Nothing exists unless I can touch it. Come out of that room, so that I may touch you, and see whether you exist.
'Just before your shadow fell across the vase. 'What language does she talk? 'She does not talk at all, but I know all she thinks. 'This is really too absurd! Have you ever touched her? 'No. It is enough for me to look at her. 'I will tell you what it is, said Kanker, lifting up one of his ugly fingers and holding it at the side of his little sharp nose. 'You are crazy quite crazy!
"That isn't the point," broke in Ned. "Where is my friend, Tom Swift? That's what we want to know." "Huh! What makes you think I can tell you?" demanded Kanker. "Didn't he come out here?" asked Mr. Damon. "Not as I knows of," was the surly answer.
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