“Bless my coal bin!” cried the eccentric man, “but Tom is in a hurry this morning. Too bad he couldn’t have stopped and spoken to me. It might have been greatly to his advantage. But I suppose I shall have to wait.”
“You want to see Master?” asked a voice behind Mr. Damon, and, turning, he beheld a veritable giant.
“Yes, Koku, I did,” Mr. Damon answered, and he did not appear at all surprised at the sight of the towering form beside him. “I wanted to see Tom most particularly. But I shall have to wait. I’ll go in and talk to Mr. Swift.”
“Yaas, an’ I go talk to Radicate,” said the giant. “Him diggin’ up ground where Master told me to make garden. Radicate not strong enough for dat!”
“Huh! there’s trouble as soon as those two get to disputing,” mused Mr. Damon, as he went toward the house.
Meanwhile, Mary was beginning to enjoy herself. The sensation of moving rapidly through the air in a machine as skillfully guided as was the one piloted by Tom Swift was delightful. Up and up they went, and then suddenly Mary felt a lurch, and the plane, which was now about a thousand feet high, seemed to slip to one side.
Mary screamed, and began reaching for the buckle of the safety belt that fastened her to her seat. She saw that something unusual had occurred, for Tom was working frantically at the mechanism in front of him.
But, in spite of this, he seemed aware that Mary was in danger, not so much, perhaps, from what might happen to the machine, as what she might do in her terror.
“Oh! Oh!” cried the girl, and Tom heard her above the terrific noise of the motor, for she was speaking with her lips close to the tube that served as a sort of inter-communicating telephone for the craft. “Oh, we are falling! I’m going to jump!”
“Sit still! Sit still for your life!” cried Tom Swift. “I’ll save you all right! Only sit still! Don’t jump!”
Mary, her red cheeks white, sank back, and the young inventor redoubled his efforts at the controls and other mechanisms.
And that Tom was perfectly qualified to make a safe landing, even with engine trouble, Mary Nestor well knew. Those of you who have read the previous books of this series know it also, but, for the benefit of my new readers, I shall state that this was by no means Tom’s first ride in an aeroplane.
He had operated and built gasoline engines ever since he was about sixteen years old. As related in the initial volume of this series, entitled, “Tom Swift and His Motorcycle,” he became possessed of this machine after it had started to climb a tree with Mr. Damon on board. After that experience the eccentric man—blessing everything he could think of—had no liking for the speedy motorcycle and sold it to Tom at a low price.
That was the beginning of a friendship between the two, and also started Tom on his career as an inventor and a possessor of many gasoline craft. For he was not content with merely riding the repaired motorcycle. He made improvements on it.
Tom lived with his father in the town of Shopton, their home being looked after, since the death of Mrs. Swift, by Mrs. Baggert. Mr. Wakefield Damon lived in the neighboring town of Waterfield, and spent much time at Tom’s home, often going on trips with him in various vehicles of the land, sea or air.
As related in the various volumes of this series, Tom was not content to remain on earth. He built a speedy motor boat, and then secured an airship, following that with a submarine. He also made an electric runabout that was the speediest car on the road. Sending wireless messages, having thrilling experiences among the diamond makers, journeying to the caves of ice, and making perilous trips in his sky racer took up part of the young inventor’s time.
With his electric rifle he did some wonderful shooting, and in the “City of Gold” made some strange discoveries, part of the fortune he secured enabling him to build his sky racer. It was in a land of giants that Tom was made captive, but he succeeded in escaping, and brought two giants, of whom Koku was one, away with him.
Following this achievement Tom invented a wizard camera and a great searchlight, which, with his giant cannon, was purchased by the United States Government. Work on his photo-telephone and his aerial warship, the problem of digging a big tunnel, and then traveling to the land of wonders, kept Tom Swift very busy, and he had just completed a wonderful piece of work when the present story opens.
This last achievement was the perfecting of a machine to aid in the great World War and you will find the details set down in the volume which immediately precedes this. “Tom Swift and His War Tank,” it is called, and in that is related how he not only invented a marvelous machine, but succeeded in keeping its secret from the plotters who tried to take it from him. In this Tom was helped by the inspiration of Mary Nestor, whom he hoped some day to marry, and by Ned Newton, a chum, who, though no inventor himself, could admire one.
Ned and Tom had been chums a long while, but Ned inclined more to financial and office matters than to machinery. At times he had managed affairs for Tom, and helped him finance projects. Ned was now an important bank official, and since the United States had entered the war had had charge of some Red Cross work, as well as Liberty Bond campaigns.
Somehow, as she sat there in the craft which seemed disabled, Mary Nestor could not help thinking of Tom’s many activities, in some of which she had shared.
“Oh, if he falls now, and is killed!” she thought. “Oh, what will happen to us?”
“It’s all right, Mary! Don’t worry! It’s all right!” cried Tom, through the speaking tube.
“What’s that? I can’t hear you very well!” she called back.
“No wonder, with the racket this motor is making,” he answered. “Why can’t something be done so you can talk in an aeroplane as well as in a balloon? That’s an idea! If I could tell you what was the matter now you wouldn’t be a bit frightened, for it isn’t anything. But, as it is—”
“What are you saying, Tom? I can’t hear you!” cried Mary, still much frightened.
“I say it’s all right—don’t get scared. And don’t jump!” Tom shouted until his ears buzzed. “It’s all nonsense—having a motor making so much noise one can’t talk!” he went on, irritatedly.
A strange idea had come to the young inventor, but there was no time to think of it now. Mentally he registered a vow to take up this idea and work on it as soon as possible. But, just now, the aeroplane needed all his attention.
As he had told Mary, there was really nothing approaching any great danger. But it was rather an anxious moment. If Tom had been alone he would have thought little of it, but with Mary along he felt a double responsibility.
What had happened was that the craft had suddenly gone into an “air pocket” or partial vacuum, and there had been a sudden fall and a slide slip. In trying to stop this too quickly Tom had broken one of his controls, and he was busily engaged in putting an auxiliary one in place and trying to reassure Mary at the same time.
“But it’s mighty hard trying to do that through a speaking tube with a motor making a noise like a boiler factory,” mused the young inventor. Tom worked quickly and to good purpose. In a few moments, though to Mary they seemed like hours, the machine was again gliding along on a level keel, and Tom breathed more easily.
“And now for my great idea!” he told himself.
But it was some time before he could give his attention to that.
CHAPTER III
THE BIG OFFER
Working with all the skill he possessed, Tom had got the aeroplane in proper working order again. As has been said, the accident was a trivial one, and had he been alone, or with an experienced aviator, he would have thought little of it. Then, very likely, he would have volplaned to earth and made the repairs there. But he did not want to frighten Mary Nestor, so he fixed the control while gliding along, and made light of it. Thus his passenger was reassured.
“Are we all right?” asked Mary through the tube, as they sailed along.
“Right as a fiddle,” answered Tom, shouting through the same mean
s of communication.
“What’s that about a riddle?” asked Mary, in surprise at his seeming flippancy at such a time.
“I didn’t say anything about a riddle—I said we are as fit as a fiddle!” cried Tom. “Never mind. No use trying to talk with the racket this motor makes, and it isn’t the noisiest of its kind, either. I’ll tell you when we get down. Do you like it?”
“Yes, I like it better than I did at first,” answered Mary, for she had managed to understand the last of Tom’s questions. Then he sailed a little higher, circled about, and, a little later, not to get Mary too tired and anxious, he headed for his landing field.
“I’ll take you home in the auto,” he cried to his passenger. “We could go up to your house this way—in style—if there was a field near by large enough to land in. But there isn’t. So it will have to be a plain, every-day auto.”
“That’s good enough for me,” said Mary. “Though this trip is wonderful—glorious! I’ll go again any time you ask me.”
“Well, I’ll ask you,” said Tom. “And when I do maybe it won’t be so hard to hold a conversation. It will be more like this,” and he shut off the motor and began to glide gently down. The quiet succeeding the terrific noise of the motor exhaust was almost startling, and Tom and Mary could converse easily without using the tube.
Then followed the landing on the soft, springy turf, a little glide over the ground, and the machine came to a halt, while mechanics ran out of the hangar to take charge of it.
“I’ll just go in and change these togs,” said Mary, as she alighted and looked at her leather costume.
“No, don’t,” advised Tom. “You look swell in em. Keep ’em on. They’re yours, and you’ll need ’em when we go up again. Here comes the auto. I’ll take you right home in it. Keep the aviation suit on.
“I wonder what Mr. Damon could have wanted,” remarked Tom, as he drove Mary along the country road.
“He seemed very much excited,” she replied.
“Oh, he almost always is that way—blessing everything he can think of. You know that. But this time it was different, I’ll admit. I hope nothing is the matter. I might have stopped and spoken to him, but I was afraid if I did you’d back out and wouldn’t come for a sky ride.”
“Well, I might have. But now that I’ve had one, even with an accident thrown in, I’ll go any time you ask me, Tom,” and Mary smiled at the young inventor.
“Shucks, that wasn’t a real accident!” he laughed. “But I do wonder what Mr. Damon wanted.”
“Better go back and find out, Tom,” advised Mary, as they stopped in front of her house.
“Oh, I want to come in and talk to you. Haven’t had a chance for a good talk today, that motor made such a racket.”
“No, go along now, but come back and see me this afternoon if you like.”
“I do like, all right! And I suppose Mr. Damon will be fussing until he sees me. Well, glad you liked your first ride in the air, Mary—that is, the first one of any account,” for Mary had been in an aeroplane before, though only up a little way—a sort of “grass-cutting stunt,” Tom called it.
Waving farewell to the pretty girl, the young aviator turned the auto about and speeded for his home and the shops adjoining it. His father had not been well, of late, and Tom was a bit anxious about him.
“Mr. Damon may bother him, though he wouldn’t mean to,” thought Tom. “He seemed to have his mind filled with some new idea. I wonder if it is anything like mine? No, it couldn’t be. Well, I’ll soon find out,” and, putting his foot on the accelerator, Tom sent the machine along at a pace that soon brought him within sight of his home.
“Is father all right?” he asked Mrs. Baggert, who was out on the front porch, as though waiting for him.
“Oh, yes, Tom, he’s all right,” the housekeeper answered.
“Is Mr. Damon with him?”
“No.”
“He hasn’t gone home, has he?”
“No, he’s around somewhere. But some one else is with your father. Some visitors.”
“Any relations?”
“No; strangers. They came to see you, and they’re rather impatient. I came out to see if you were in sight. Your father sent me.”
“Are they bothering him—talking business that I ought to attend to when he’s ill? That mustn’t be.”
“Well, I suppose it is business that the strangers are talking over with your father, Tom,” said Mrs. Baggert, “for I heard sums of money spoken of. But your father seems to be all right, only a trifle anxious that you should come.”
“Well, I’m here now and I’ll attend to things. Where are the strangers, and who are they?”
“I don’t know,” answered the housekeeper. “I never saw them before, but they’re in the library with your father. Do you think they’ll stay to dinner? If you do, I’ll have Eradicate or Koku catch and kill a chicken.”
“If you let one do it don’t tell the other about it,” said Tom with a laugh, “or you’ll have a chicken race around the yard that will make the visitors sit up and take notice.”
There was great rivalry between Eradicate Sampson, the aged colored man, and Koku, the giant, and they were continually disputing. Each one loved and served Tom in his own way, and there was jealousy between them. Koku, the giant Tom had brought with him from the land where the young inventor had been made captive, was a big, powerful man, and could do things the aged colored servant could not attempt. But “Rad,” as he was often called, and his mule “Boomerang” had long been fixtures on the Swift homestead. But old age crept on apace with Eradicate, though he hated to admit it, and Koku did many things the colored man had formerly attended to, and Rad was always on the lookout not to be supplanted. Hence Tom’s warning to Mrs. Baggert about letting the two be entrusted with the same mission of catching a chicken for the pot.
“Better get the fowl yourself and say nothing to either of them about it,” Tom advised the housekeeper. “Mr. Damon will stay to dinner, as he always does when he comes, and as it’s near twelve now, and as I may be delayed talking business to these strangers, you’d better get up a bigger meal than usual.”
“I will, Tom,” promised Mrs. Baggert. And then the young inventor, having seen that one of the men took the automobile to the garage, went into the house.
“Oh, here you are!” was his father’s greeting, as he came out into the hall from the library. “I’ve been waiting anxiously for you, my boy. I couldn’t think what was keeping you.”
“Oh, I had a little trouble with the air machine—nothing serious.”
A moment later Tom was standing before two well-dressed, prosperous-looking business men, who smiled pleasantly at him.
“Mr. Thomas Swift?” interrogated one, the elder, as he held out his hand.
“That’s my name,” answered Tom, pleasantly.
“I’m Peton Gale, and this gentleman is Boland Ware,” went on the man who had taken Tom’s hand. “I’m president and he’s treasurer of the Universal Flying Machine Company, of New York.”
“Oh, yes,” said Tom, as he shook hands with Mr. Ware. “I have heard of your concern. You are doing a lot of government work, are you not?”
“Yes; war orders. And we’re up to our neck in them. This war is going to be almost as much fought in the air as on the ground, Mr. Swift.”
“I can well believe that,” agreed Tom. “Won’t you have a chair?”
“Well, we didn’t come to stay long,” said Mr. Gale with a laugh, which, somehow or other, grated on Tom and seemed to him insincere. “Our business is such a rushing one that we don’t spend much time anywhere. To get down to brass tacks, we have come to see you to put a certain proposition before you, Mr. Swift. You are open to a business proposition, aren’t you?”
“Oh, yes,” answered Tom. “That’s what I’m here for.”
“I thought so. Well, now I’ll tell you, in brief, what we want, and then Mr. Ware, our treasurer, can elaborate on it, and give you facts
and figures about which I never bother myself. I attend to the executive end and leave the details to others,” and again came that laugh which Tom did not like.
“You came here to make me an offer?” asked the young inventor, wondering to which of his many machines the visitors had reference.
“Yes,” went on Mr. Gale, “we came here to make you a big offer. In short, Mr. Swift, we want you to work for our company, and we are willing to pay you ten thousand dollars a year for the benefit of your advice and your inventive abilities. Ten thousand dollars a year! Do you accept?”
CHAPTER IV
MR. DAMON’S WHIZZER
Characteristic it was of Tom Swift that he did not seem at all surprised at what most young men would call a liberal offer. Certainly not many youths of Tom’s age would be sought out by a big manufacturing concern, and offered ten thousand dollars a year “right off the reel,” as Ned Newton expressed it later. But Tom only smiled and shook his head in negation.
“What!” cried Mr. Gale, “you mean you won’t accept our offer?”
“I can’t,” answered Tom.
“You can’t!” exclaimed the treasurer, Mr. Ware. “Oh, I see. Mr. Gale, a word with you. Excuse us a moment,” he added to Tom and his father.
The two men consulted in a corner of the library for a moment, and then, with smiles on their faces, once more turned toward the young inventor.
“Well, perhaps you are right, Tom Swift,” said Mr. Gale. “Of course, we recognize your talents and ability, but you cannot blame us for trying to get talent, as well as material for our airships, in the cheapest market. But we are not hide-bound, nor sticklers for any set sum. We’ll make that offer fifteen thousand dollars a year, if you will sign a five-year contract and agree that we shall have first claim on anything and everything you may patent or invent in that time. Now, how does that strike you? Fifteen thousand dollars a year—paid weekly if you wish, and our Mr. Ware, here, has a form of contract which can be fixed up and signed within ten minutes, if you agree.”
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