The Tom Swift Megapack

by Victor Appleton

  “Well, I don’t like to be disagreeable,” said Tom with a smile; “but, really, as I said before, I can’t accept your very kind offer. I may say liberal offer. I appreciate that.”

  “You can’t accept!” cried Mr. Gale.

  “Are you sure you don’t mean ‘won’t’?” asked Mr. Ware, in a half growl.

  “You may call it that if you like,” replied Tom, a bit coolly, for he did not like the other’s tone, “Only, as I say, I cannot accept. I have other plans.”

  “Oh, you—” began the brusk treasurer, but Mr. Gale, the president of the Universal Flying Machine Company, stopped his associate with a warning look.

  “Just a moment, Mr. Swift,” begged the president. “Don’t be hasty. We are prepared to make you a last and final offer, and I do not believe you can refuse it.”

  “Well, I certainly will not refuse it without hearing it,” said Tom, with a smile he meant to make good-natured. Yet, truth to tell, he did not at all like the two visitors. There was something about them that aroused his antagonism, and he said later that even if they had offered him a sum which he felt he ought not, in justice to himself and his father, refuse, he would have felt a distaste in working for a company represented by the twain.

  “This is our offer,” said Mr. Gale, and he spoke in a pompous manner which seemed to say: “If you don’t take it, why, it will be the worse for you.” He looked at his treasurer for a confirmatory nod and, receiving it, went on. “We are prepared to offer and pay you, and will enter into such a contract, with the stipulation about the inventions that I mentioned before—we are prepared to pay you—twenty thousand dollars a year! Now what do you say to that, Tom Swift?

  “Twenty-thousand-dollars-a-year!” repeated Mr. Gale unctuously, rolling the words off his tongue. “Twen-ty-thou-sand-dol-lars-a-year! Think of it!”

  “I am thinking of it,” said Tom Swift gently, “and I thank you for your offer. It is, indeed, very generous. But I must give you the same answer. I cannot accept.”

  “Tom!” exclaimed his aged father.

  “Mr. Swift!” exclaimed the two visitors.

  Tom smiled and shook his head.

  “Oh, I know very well what I am saying, and what I am turning down,” he said. “But I simply cannot accept. I have other plans. I am sorry you have had your trip for nothing,” he added to the visitors, “but, really, I must refuse.”

  “Is that your final answer?” asked Mr. Gale.

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t you want to take a day or two to think it over?” asked the treasurer. “Don’t be hasty. Remember that very few young men can command that salary, and I may say you will find us liberal in other ways. You would have some time to yourself.”

  “That is what I most need,” returned Tom. “Time to myself. No, thank you, gentlemen, I cannot accept.”

  “Be careful!” warned Mr. Gale, and it sounded as though there might be a threat in his voice. “This is our last offer, and your last chance. We will not renew this. If you do not accept our twenty thousand dollars now, you will never get it again.”

  “I realize that,” said Tom, “and I am prepared to take the consequences.

  “Very well, then,” said Mr. Gale. “There seems nothing for us to do, Mr. Ware, but to go back to New York. I bid you good-day,” and he bowed stiffly to Tom. “I hope you will not regret your refusal of our offer.”

  “I hope so myself,” said Tom, lightly.

  When the visitors had gone Mr. Swift turned toward his son, and, shaking his head, remarked:

  “Of course, you know your own business best, Tom. Yet I cannot but feel you have made a mistake.”

  “How?” asked Tom. “By not taking that money? I can easily make that in a year, with an idea I have in mind for an improvement on an airship. And your new electric motor will soon be ready for the market. Besides, we don’t really need the money.”

  “No, not now, Tom, but there is no telling when we may,” said Mr. Swift, slowly. “This big war has made many changes, and things that brought us in a good income before, hardly sell at all, now.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, Dad! We still have a few shots left in the locker—in other words, the bank. I’m expecting Ned Newton over any moment now, to give us the annual statement of our account, and then we’ll know where we stand. I’m not afraid from the money end. Our business has done well, and it is going to do better. I have a new idea.”

  “That’s all very well, Tom,” said Mr. Swift, who seemed oppressed by something. “As you say, money isn’t everything, and I know we shall always have enough to live on. But there is something about those two men I do not like. They were very angry at your refusal of their offer. I could see that. Tom, I don’t want to be a croaker, but I think you’ll have to watch out for those men. They’re going to be your enemies—your rivals in the airship field,” and Mr. Swift shook his head dolefully.

  “Well, rivalry, when it’s clean and above board, is the spice of trade and invention,” returned Tom, lightly. “I’m not afraid of that.”

  “No, but it may be unfair and underhand,” said Mr. Swift. “I think it would have been better, Tom, to have accepted their offer. Twenty thousand a year, clear money, is a good sum.”

  “Yes, but I may make twice that with something that occurred to me only a little while ago. Forget about those men, Dad, and I’ll tell you my new idea. But wait, I want Mr. Damon to hear it, too. Where is he?”

  “He was here a little while ago. He went out when those two men came and—”

  At that moment, from the garden at the side of the library, the sound of voices in dispute could be heard.

  “Now yo’ all g’wan ’way from yeah!” exclaimed some one who could be none other than Eradicate Sampson. “Whut fo’ yo’ all want to clutter up dish yeah place fo’? Massa Tom said I was to do de garden wuk, an’ I’se gwine to do it! G’wan ’way, Giant!”

  “Ho! You want me to get out, s’pose you put me, black face!” cried a big voice, that of Koku, the giant.

  “There they go! At it again!” cried Tom with a smile. “Might have known if I told Rad to do anything that Koku would be jealous. Well, I’ll have to go out now and give that giant something to do that will tax his strength.”

  But as Tom was about to leave the room another voice was heard in the garden.

  “Now, boys, be nice,” said some one soothingly. “The garden is large enough for you both to work in. Rad, you begin at the lower end and spade toward the middle. Koku, you begin at the upper end and work down. Whoever gets to the middle first will win.”

  “Ha! Den I’ll show dat giant some spade wuk as is spade wuk!” cried the colored man. “Garden wuk is mah middle name.”

  “Be careful, Rad!” laughed Mr. Damon, for he it was who was trying to act as peacemaker. “Remember that Koku is very strong.”

  “Yas, sah! He may be strong, but he’s clumsy!” chuckled Eradicate. “You watch me beat him!”

  “Ho! Black man get stuck in mud!” challenged Koku. “I show him!”

  Then there was silence, and Tom and his father, looking out, saw the two disputants beginning to spade the soil while Mr. Damon, satisfied that he had, for the time being, stopped a quarrel, turned toward the house.

  “I was just coming to look for you,” said Tom. “Sorry I had to go off in such a hurry and leave you, but I had promised to take Mary for a ride, and as it was her first one, for a distance, I didn’t want her to back out.”

  “That’s all right, Tom, that’s all right!” said Mr. Damon genially. “Ladies first every time. But I do want to see you, and it’s about something important.”

  “No trouble, I hope?” queried Tom, for the manner of the eccentric man was rather grave.

  “Trouble? Oh, no! Bless my frying pan, no trouble, Tom! In fact, it may be the other way about. Tom, I have an idea, and there may be millions in it! That’s it—millions!”

  “Good!” cried the young inventor. “Might as well bite off a big lump whi
le you’re at it. So you have a new idea! Well, I have myself, but I’ll listen to yours first. What is it, Mr. Damon?”

  “It’s a new kind of airship, Tom. I haven’t got it all worked out yet, but I can give you a rough outline. On my way over I got to thinking about balloons, aeroplanes and the like, and it occurred to me that the present principles are all wrong.”

  “So I evolved a new type of machine. I’m going to call it the Damon Whizzer. Maybe Demon Whizzer would be more appropriate, but we won’t decide on that now. Anyhow, it’s going to be a whizzer, and I want to talk to you about it. There is an entirely new principle of elevation and propulsion involved in my Whizzer, and I—”

  At that moment there came a crash and clatter of steel and wood from the garden, out of sight of which Tom and Mr. Damon had walked while talking. Then followed a jangle of words.

  “They’re at it again!” cried Tom, as he ran toward the side of the house. “I guess it’s a fight this time!”

  CHAPTER V

  TOM’S PROJECT

  Curious was the sight that met the gaze of Tom Swift and Mr. Wakefield Damon as they rounded the corner of the house and looked into the newly spaded garden. There stood the giant, Koku, holding aloft in the air, by one hand, the form of the struggling colored man, Eradicate Sampson. And Eradicate was vainly trying to get at his enemy and rival, but was prevented by the long-distance hold the giant had on him.

  “Yo’ let me go, now! Yo’ let me go, big man,” cried Eradicate. “Ef yo’ don’t I’ll bust yo’ wide open, dat’s whut I’ll do! An’ ’sides, I’ll tell Massa Tom on yo’, dat’s whut I’ll do!”

  “Ho! You tell—I let you fall!” threatened Koku.

  His threat was dire enough, for such was his size and strength that he held the colored man nearly nine feet from the ground, and a fall from that distance would seriously jar Eradicate, if it did nothing else. The colored man’s eyes opened wide as he heard what Koku said, and then he cried:

  “Let me down! Let me down, an’ I won’t say nuffin!”

  “An’ you let me scatter dirt?” asked Koku, for such was the giant’s idea of working in the garden.

  “Yes, yo’ kin scatter de dirt seben ways from Sunday fo’ all I keers!” conceded Eradicate. Then, as he was lowered to the ground, he and the giant turned and saw Mr. Damon and Tom approaching.

  “What’s wrong?” asked the young inventor.

  “’Scuse me, Massa Tom,” began Eradicate, “but didn’t yo’ tell me to spade de garden?”

  “I guess I did,” admitted Tom Swift.

  “An’ you tell me help—yes?” questioned Koku.

  “Well, I thought it would be a little too much for you, Rad,” said Tom, gently. “I thought perhaps you’d like help.”

  “Hu! Not him, anyhow!” declared the colored man in great disgust. “When I git so old dat I cain’t spade a garden, den me an’ Boomerang, we-all gwine to die, dat’s all I got to say. I was a-spadin’ my part ob de garden, Massa Tom, same laik Mr. Damon done tole me to, an’ dish yeah big mess ob bones steps on my side ob de middle an—”

  “Him too slow. Koku scatter dirt twice times so fast!” declared the giant, whose English was not much better than Eradicate’s.

  “Yes, I see,” said Tom. “You are so strong, Koku, that you finished your part before Eradicate did. Well, it was good of you to want to help him.”

  At this the giant grinned at his rival.

  “At the same time,” went on Tom, winking an eye at Mr. Damon, “Eradicate knows a little more about garden work, on account of having done it so many years.”

  “Ha! Whut I tell yo’, Giant!” boasted the colored man. It was his turn to smile.

  “And so,” went on Tom, judicially, “I guess I’ll let Rad finish spading the garden, and you, Koku, can come and help me lift some heavy engine parts. Mr. Damon wants to explain something to me.”

  “Ha! Nothing what so heavy Koku not lift!” boasted the giant.

  “Go on! Lift yo’se’f ’way from heah!” muttered Eradicate as he picked up his dropped spade. And then, with a smile of satisfaction, he fell to work in the mellow soil while Tom led Koku to one of the shops where he set him to lifting heavy motor parts about in order to get at a certain machine that was stored away in the back of one of the rooms.

  “That will keep him busy,” said the young inventor. “And now, Mr. Damon, I can listen to you. Do you really think you have a new idea in airships?”

  “I really think so, Tom. My Whizzer is bound to revolutionize travel in the air. Let me tell you what I mean. Now cast your mind back. How many ways are now used to propel an airship or a dirigible balloon through the air? How many ways?”

  “Two, as far as I know,” said Tom. “At least there are only two that have proved to be practical.”

  “Exactly,” said Mr. Damon. “One with the propeller, or propellers, in front, and that is the tractor type. The other has the propeller in the rear, and that is the pusher type. Both good as far as they go, but I have something better.”

  “What?” asked Tom with a smile.

  “It’s a Whizzer,” said the eccentric man. “Bless my gold tooth! but that is the best name I can think of for it. And, really, the propeller I’m thinking of inventing does whiz around.”

  “But are you going to use a tractor or pusher type?” Tom wanted to know.

  “It’s a combination of both,” answered Mr. Damon. “As it is now, Tom, you have to get an aeroplane in pretty speedy motion before it will rise from the ground, don’t you?”

  “Yes, of course. That’s the principle on which an aeroplane rises and keeps aloft, by its speed in the air. As soon as that speed stops it begins to fall, or volplane, as we call it.”

  “Exactly. Now, instead of having to depend on the speed of the aeroplane for this, why not depend on the speed of the propeller—in other words, the whizzer?”

  “Well, we do,” said Tom, a bit puzzled as to what his friend was trying to get at. “If the propeller didn’t move the airship wouldn’t rise—that is, unless it’s of the balloon type.”

  “What I mean,” said Mr. Damon, “is to have an aeroplane that will move in the air the same as a boat moves in the water. You don’t have to get the propeller of a boat racing around at the rate of a million revolutions a minute, more or less, before your boat will travel, do you? If the engine turns the screw, or propeller, just over say fifty times a minute you would get some motion of the boat, wouldn’t you?”

  “Why, yes, some,” admitted Tom.

  “And what causes it?” asked Mr. Damon, anticipating a triumph.

  “The resistance of the water to the blades of the screw, or propeller,” answered Tom.

  “Exactly! And it’s the resistance of the air to the blades of an airship propeller that sends the craft along, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. And because of the difference in density between air and water it becomes necessary to revolve an aeroplane propeller many times faster than a boat propeller. It’s the density that makes the difference, Mr. Damon. If air were as dense as water we could have comparatively slow-moving motors and propellers and—”

  “Ha! There you have it, Tom! And there is where my Whizzer—Wakefield Damon’s Whizzer—is going to revolutionize air travel!” cried the eccentric man. “The difference in density! If air were as dense as water the problem would be solved. And I have solved it! I’m going to turn the trick, Tom! One more question. How can air be made as dense as water, Tom Swift?”

  “Why, by condensation or compression, I suppose,” was the rather slow answer. “You know they have condensed, or compressed, air until it is liquid. I’ve done it myself, as an experiment.”

  “That’s it, Tom! That’s it!” cried Mr. Damon in delight. “Compressed air will do the trick! Not compressed to a liquid, exactly, but almost so. I’m going to revolve the propellers of my new airship in compressed air, so dense that they will not have to have a speed of more than seven hundred revolutions a minute. What’s
that compared to the three to ten thousand revolutions of the propellers now used? The propellers of Damon’s Whizzer will be of the pusher type, and will revolve in dense, compressed air, almost like water, and that will do away with high speed motors, with all their complications, and make traveling in the clouds as simple as taking out a little one-cylinder motor boat. How’s that, Tom Swift? How’s that for an idea?”

  To Mr. Damon’s disappointment, Tom was not enthusiastic. The young inventor gazed at his eccentric friend, and then said slowly:

  “Well, that’s all right in theory, but how is it going to work out in practice?”

  “That’s what I came to see you about, Tom,” was the reply. “Bless my tall hat! but that’s just why I hurried over here. I wanted to tell you when I saw you going off on a trip with Miss Nestor. That’s my big idea—Damon’s Whizzer—propellers revolving in compressed air like water. Isn’t that great?”

  “I’m sorry to shatter your air castle,” said Tom; “but for the life of me I can’t see how it will work. Of course, in theory, if you could revolve a big-bladed propeller in very dense, or in liquid, air, there would be more resistance than in the rarefied atmosphere of the upper regions. And, if this could be done, I grant you that you could use slower motors and smaller propeller blades—more like those of a motor boat. But how are you going to get the condensed air?”

  “Make it!” said Mr. Damon promptly. “Air pumps are cheap. Just carry one or two on board the aeroplane, and condense the air as you go along. That’s a small detail that can easily be worked out. I leave that to you.”

  “I’d rather you wouldn’t,” said Tom. “That’s the whole difficulty—compressing your air. Wait! I’ll explain it to you.”

  Then the young inventor went into details. He told of the ponderous machinery needed to condense air to a form approximating water, and spoke of the terrible pressure exerted by the liquid atmosphere.

  “Anything that you would gain by having a slow-speed motor and smaller propeller blades, would be lost by the ponderous air-condensing machinery you would need,” Tom told Mr. Damon. “Besides, if you could surround your propellers with a strata of condensed air, it would create such terrible cold as to freeze the propeller blades and make them as brittle as glass.