The Tom Swift Megapack

by Victor Appleton

  “Gen’man t’ see yo’, Massa Tom,” announced Eradicate, as he helped Tom wheel the monoplane back into the shed.

  “Is that so, Rad? Where is he?”

  “Settin’ in th’ library. Yo’ father am out, so I asted him in dere.”

  “That’s right, Rad. Who is he, do you know?”

  “No, sah, Massa Tom, I doan’t. He shore does use a pow’ful nice perfume on his pocket hanky, though. Yum-yum!”

  “Perfume!” exclaimed Tom, his mind going back to the day he had had the trouble with Mr. Peters. “Is he a big, red-faced man, Rad?”

  “No, sah, Massa Tom. He’s a white-faced, skinny man.”

  “Then it can’t be Peters,” mused Tom. “I guess perhaps it’s that lawyer I wrote to about bringing suit to get back what it cost me to have the Kilo fixed. I’ll see him at once. Oh, by the way, it isn’t Mr. Grant Halling; is it? The gentleman who got tangled up in our aerials with his airship? Is it he?”

  “No, sah, Massa Tom. ’Tain’t him.”

  “I thought perhaps he had gotten into more trouble,” mused Tom, as he took off his airship “togs,” and started for the house. For Mr. Halling had called for his repaired airship some time ago, and had promised to pay Tom another and more conventional visit, some future day.

  Tom did not know the visitor whom he greeted in the library a little later. The man, as Eradicate had said, was rather pale of face, and certainly he was not very fleshy.

  “Mr. Tom Swift, I think?” said the man, rising and holding out his hand.

  “That’s my name. I don’t believe I know you, though.”

  “No, I haven’t your reputation,” said the man, with a laugh that Tom did not like. “We can’t all be great inventors like you,” and, somehow, Tom liked the man less than before, for he detected an undertone of sneering patronage in the words. Tom disliked praise, and he felt that this was not sincere.

  “I have called on a little matter of business,” went on the man. “My name is Harrison Boylan, and I represent Mr. Shallock Peters.”

  Instinctively Tom stiffened. Receiving a call from a representative of the man against whom Mr. Damon had warned him only a short time before was a strange coincidence, Tom thought.

  “You had some little accident, when your motor boat and that of Mr. Peters collided, a brief time ago; did you not?” went on Mr. Boylan.

  “I did,” said Tom, and, as he motioned the caller to be seated Tom saw, with a start, that some of the drawings of his photo telephone were lying on a desk in plain sight. They were within easy reach of the man, and Tom thought the sheets looked as though they had been recently handled. They were not in the orderly array Tom had made of them before going out.

  “If he is a spy, and has been looking at them,” mused Tom, “he may steal my invention.” Then he calmed himself, as he realized that he, himself, had not yet perfected his latest idea. “I guess he couldn’t make much of the drawings,” Tom thought.

  “Yes, the collision was most unfortunate,” went on Mr. Boylan, “and Mr. Peters has instructed me to say—”

  “If he’s told you to say that it was my fault, you may as well save your time,” cut in Tom. “I don’t want to be impolite, but I have my own opinion of the affair. And I might add that I have instructed a lawyer to begin a suit against Mr. Peters—”

  “No necessity for that at all!” interrupted the man, in soft accents. “No necessity at all. I am sorry you did that, for there was no need. Mr. Peters has instructed me to say that he realizes the accident was entirely his own fault, and he is very willing—nay, anxious, to pay all damages. In fact, that is why I am here, and I am empowered, my dear Mr. Swift, to offer you five hundred dollars, to pay for the repairs to your motor boat. If that is not enough—”

  The man paused, and drew a thick wallet from his pocket. Tom felt a little embarrassed over what he had said.

  “Oh,” spoke the young inventor, “the repair bill is only about three hundred dollars. I’m sorry—”

  “Now that’s all right, Mr. Swift! It’s all right,” and the man, with his soft words, raised a white, restraining hand. “Not another word. Mr. Peters did not know who you were that day he so unfortunately ran into you. If he had, he would not have spoken as he did. He supposed you were some amateur motor-boatist, and he was—well, he admits it—he was provoked.”

  “Since then he has made inquiries, and, learning who you were, he at once authorized me to make a settlement in full. So if five hundred dollars—”

  “The repair bill,” said Tom, and his voice was not very cordial, in spite of the other’s persuasive smile, “the bill came to three hundred forty-seven dollars. Here is the receipted bill. I paid it, and, to be frank with you, I intended bringing suit against Mr. Peters for that sum.”

  “No need, no need at all, I assure you!” interrupted Mr. Boylan, as he counted off some bills. “There you are, and I regret that you and Mr. Peters had such a misunderstanding. It was all his fault, and he wants to apologize to you.”

  “The apology is accepted,” said Tom, and he smiled a trifle. “Also the money. I take it merely as a matter of justice, for I assure you that Mr. Peters’s own machinist will say the accident was his employer’s fault.”

  “No doubt of it, not the least in the world,” said the caller. “And now that I have this disagreeable business over, let me speak of something more pleasant.”

  Instinctively Tom felt that now the real object of the man’s call would be made plain—that the matter of paying the damages was only a blind. Tom steeled himself for what was to come.

  “You know, I suppose,” went on Mr. Boylan, smiling at Tom, “that Mr. Peters is a man of many and large interests.”

  “I have heard something like that,” said Tom, cautiously.

  “Yes. Well, he is an organizer—a promoter, if you like. He supplies the money for large enterprises, and is, therefore, a benefactor of the human race. Where persons have no cash with which to exploit their—well, say their inventions. Mr. Peters takes them, and makes money out of them.”

  “No doubt,” thought Tom, grimly.

  “In other cases, where an inventor is working at a handicap, say with too many interests, Mr. Peters takes hold of one of his ideas, and makes it pay much better than the inventor has been able to do.”

  “Now, Mr. Peters has heard of you, and he would like to do you good.”

  “Yes, I guess he would,” thought Tom. “He would like to do me—and do me good and brown. Here’s where I’ve got to play a game myself.”

  “And so,” went on Mr. Boylan, “Mr. Peters has sent me to you to ask you to allow him to exploit one, or several, of your inventions. He will form a large stock company, put one of your inventions on the market, and make you a rich man. Now what do you say?” and he looked at Tom and smiled—smiled, the young inventor could not help thinking, like a cat looking at a mouse. “What do you say, Mr. Swift?”

  For a moment Tom did not answer. Then getting up and opening the library door, to indicate that the interview was at an end, the young inventor smiled, and said:

  “Tell Mr. Peters that I thank him, but that I have nothing for him to exploit, or with which to form a company to market.”

  “Wha—what!” faltered the visitor. “Do you mean to say you will not take advantage of his remarkable offer?”

  “That’s just what I mean to say,” replied Tom, with a smile.

  “You won’t do business with Mr. Peters? You won’t let him do you good?”

  “No,” said Tom, quietly.

  “Why—why, that’s the strangest—the most preposterous thing I ever heard of!” protested Mr. Boylan. “What—what shall I say to Mr. Peters?”

  “Tell him,” said Tom, “tell him, from me, and excuse the slang, if you like, but tell him there is—nothing doing!”

  CHAPTER VIII

  TOM IS BAFFLED

  Amazement held Mr. Boylan silent for a moment, and then, staring at Tom, as though he could not believe
what he had heard the young inventor say, the representative of Mr. Peters exclaimed:

  “Nothing doing?”

  “That’s what I said,” repeated Tom, calmly.

  “But—but you don’t understand, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh, but indeed I do.”

  “Then you refuse to let my friend, Mr. Peters, exploit some of your inventions?”

  “I refuse absolutely.”

  “Oh, come now. Take an invention that hasn’t been very successful.”

  “Well, I don’t like to boast,” said Tom with a smile, “but all of my inventions have been successful. They don’t need any aid from Mr. Peters, thank you.”

  “But this one!” went on the visitor eagerly, “this one about some new kind of telephone,” and he motioned to the drawings on the table. “Has that been a success? Excuse me for having looked at the plans, but I did not think you would mind. Has that telephone been a success? If it has not perhaps Mr. Peters could form a company to—”

  “How did you know those drawings referred to a telephone?” asked Tom, suspiciously, for the papers did not make it clear just what the invention was.

  “Why, I understood—I heard, in fact, that you were working on a new photo telephone, and—”

  “Who told you?” asked Tom quickly.

  “Oh, no one in particular. The colored man who sent me here mentioned—”

  “Eradicate!” thought Tom. “He must have been talking. That isn’t like him. I must look into this.”

  Then to his caller he said:

  “Really, you must excuse me, Mr. Boylan, but I don’t care to do any business with Mr. Peters. Tell him, with my thanks, that there is really nothing doing in his line. I prefer to exploit my own inventions.”

  “That is your last word?”

  “Yes,” returned Tom, as he gathered up the drawings.

  “Well,” said Mr. Boylan, and Tom could not help thinking there was a veiled threat in his tones, “you will regret this. You will be sorry for not having accepted this offer.”

  “I think not,” replied Tom, confidently. “Good-day.”

  The young inventor sat for some time thinking deeply, when his visitor had gone. He called Eradicate to him, and gently questioned the old colored man, for Eradicate was ageing fast of late, and Tom did not want him to feel badly.

  It developed that the servant had been closely cross-questioned by Mr. Boylan, while he was waiting for Tom, and it was small wonder that the old colored man had let slip a reference to the photo telephone. But he really knew nothing of the details of the invention, so he could have given out no secrets.

  “But at the same time,” mused Tom, “I must be on guard against these fellows. That Boylan seems a pretty slick sort of a chap. As for Peters, he’s a big ‘bluff,’ to be perfectly frank. I’m glad I had Mr. Damon’s warning in mind, or I might have been tempted to do business with him.”

  “Now to get busy at this photo telephone again. I’m going to try a totally different system of transmission. I’ll use an alternating current on the third wire, and see if that makes it any better. And I’ll put in the most sensitive selenium plate I can make. I’m going to have this thing a success.”

  Tom carefully examined the drawings of his invention, at which papers Mr. Boylan had confessed to looking. As far as the young inventor could tell none was missing, and as they were not completed it would be hard work for anyone not familiar with them to have gotten any of Tom’s ideas.

  “But at the same time I’m going to be on my guard,” mused Tom. “And now for another trial.”

  Tom Swift worked hard during the following week, and so closely did he stick to his home and workshop that he did not even pay a visit to Mr. Damon, so he did not learn in what condition that gentleman’s affairs were. Tom even denied himself to his chum Ned, so taken up was the young inventor with working out the telephone problem, until Ned fairly forced himself into the shop one day, and insisted on Tom coming out.

  “You need some fresh air!” exclaimed Ned. “Come on out in the motor boat again. She’s all fixed now; isn’t she?”

  “Yes,” answered Tom, “but—”

  “Oh, ‘but me no buts,’ as Mr. Shakespeare would say. Come on, Tom. It will do you good. I want a spin myself.”

  “All right, I will go for a little while,” agreed Tom. “I am feeling a bit rusty, and my head seems filled with cobwebs.”

  “Can’t get the old thing to come out properly; eh?”

  “No. I guess dad was more than half right when he said it couldn’t be done. But I haven’t given up. Maybe I’ll think of some new plan if I take a little run. Come along.”

  They went down to the boat house, and soon were out on the lake in the Kilo.

  “She runs better since you had her fixed,” remarked Ned.

  “Yes, they did a good job.”

  “Did you sue Peters?”

  “Didn’t have to. He sent the money,” and Tom told of his interview with Mr. Boylan. This was news to Ned, as was also the financial trouble of Mr. Damon.

  “Well,” said the young banker, “that bears out what I had heard of Peters—that he was a get-rich-quick chap, and a good one to steer clear of.”

  “Speaking of steering clear,” laughed Tom, “there he is now, in his big boat,” and he pointed to a red blur coming up the lake. “I’ll give him a wide enough berth this time.”

  But though Mr. Peters, in his powerful motor boat, passed close to Tom’s more modest craft, the big man did not glance toward our hero and his chum. Nor did Mr. Boylan, who was with his friend, look over.

  “I guess they’ve had enough of you,” chuckled Ned.

  “Probably he wishes he hadn’t paid me that money,” said Tom. “Very likely he thought, after he handed it over, that I’d be only too willing to let him manage one of my inventions. But he has another guess coming.”

  Tom and Ned rode on for some distance, thoroughly enjoying the spin on the lake that fine Summer day. They stopped for lunch at a picnic resort, and coming back in the cool of the evening they found themselves in the midst of a little flotilla of pleasure craft, all decorated with Japanese lanterns.

  “Better slow down a bit,” Ned advised Tom, for many of the pleasure craft were canoes and light row boats. “Our wash may upset some of them.”

  “Guess you’re right, old man,” agreed Tom, as he closed the gasolene throttle, to reduce speed. Hardly had he done so than there broke in upon the merry shouts and singing of the pleasureseekers the staccato exhaust of a powerful motor boat, coming directly behind Tom’s craft.

  Then came the shrill warning of an electrical siren horn.

  “Somebody’s in a hurry,” observed Tom.

  “Yes,” answered Ned. “It sound’s like Peters’s boat, too.”

  “It is!” exclaimed Tom. “Here he comes. He ought to know better than to cut through this raft of boats at that speed.”

  “Is he headed toward us?”

  “No, I guess he’s had enough of that. But look at him!”

  With undiminished speed the burly promoter was driving his boat on. The big vibrating horn kept up its clamor, and a powerful searchlight in front dazzled the eyes.

  “Look out! Look out!” cried several.

  Many of the rowers and paddlers made haste to clear a lane for the big, speedy motor craft, and Peters and his friends (for there were several men in his boat now) seemed to accept this as a matter of course, and their right.

  “Somebody’ll be swamped!” exclaimed Ned.

  Hardly had he spoken than, as the big red boat dashed past in a smother of foam, there came a startled cry in girls’ voices.

  “Look!” cried Tom. “That canoe’s upset! Speed her up, Ned! We’ve got to get ’em!”

  CHAPTER IX

  A GLEAM OF HOPE

  “Where are they?”

  “Who are they?”

  “Over this way! There’s their canoe!”

  “Look out for that motor boat!”
r />   “Who was it ran them down? They ought to be arrested!”

  These were only a few of the cries that followed the upsetting of the frail canoe by the wash from the powerful red boat. On Tom’s Kilo there was a small, electrical searchlight which he had not yet switched on. But, with his call to Ned Newton to speed up the motor, that had been slowed down, Tom, with one turn of his fingers, set the lamp aglow, while, with the other hand, he whirled the wheel over to head his craft for the spot where he saw two figures struggling in the water.

  Fortunately the lanterns on the various canoes and row-boats, as well as the light on the bow of Tom’s Kilo, made an illumination that gave the rescuers a good chance to work. Many other boats besides Tom’s had headed for the scene, but his was the more practical, since the others—all quite small ones—were pretty well filled.

  “There they are, Ned!” Tom suddenly cried. “Throw out the clutch! I’ll get ’em!”

  “Want any help?”

  “No, you stay at the engine, and mind what I say. Reverse now! We’re going to pass them!”

  Ned threw in the backing gear, and the screw churned the water to foam under the stern of the Kilo.

  Tom leaned over the bow, and made a grab for the gasping, struggling figure of a girl in the water. At the same time he had tossed overboard a cork life ring, attached to a rope which, in turn, was made fast to the forward deck-cleat. “Grab that!” cried Tom. “Hold on, and I’ll have you out in a second! That’s enough, Ned! Shut her off!”

  The Kilo came to a standstill, and, a second later, Tom had pulled into his boat one of the girls. She would have collapsed, and fallen in a heap on the bottom boards, had not Ned, who had come forward from the engine, caught her.

  Then Tom, again leaning over the side, pulled in the other girl, who was clinging to the life ring.

  “You’re all right,” Tom assured her, as she came up, gasping, choking and crying hysterically. “You’re all right!”

  “Is—is Minnie saved?” she sobbed.

  “Yes, Grace! I’m here,” answered the one Ned was supporting.

  “Oh, wasn’t it terrible!” cried the second girl Tom had saved.

  “I thought we would be drowned, even though we can swim.”