“Of course you have!” agreed the young financial manager of the newly organized Swift Construction Company. “It isn’t anything new. This wealth of untold millions has been at the bottom of the sea for many years—always increasing with nobody ever spending a cent of it. And since the Great War this wealth has been enormously added to because of the sinking of so many ships by German submarines.”
“Well, what’s that got to do with us, Ned?” asked Tom, as he looked over some blue prints and other papers on his desk, for the talk was taking place in his office. “You and I did our part in the war, but I don’t see what all this undersea wealth has to do with us. We’ve got our work cut out for us if we take care of all the new contracts that came in this week.”
“Yes, I know,” admitted Ned. “But I couldn’t help calling your attention to this article, Tom. It’s authentic!”
“Authentic? What do you mean?
“Well, the man who wrote it went to the trouble of getting from the ship insurance companies a list of all the wrecks and lost vessels carrying gold and silver coin, bullion, and other valuables. He has gone back a hundred years, and he brings it right down to just before the war. Hasn’t had time to compile that list, the article says. But without counting the vessels the Germans sank, there is, in various places on the bottom of the ocean today, wrecks of ships that carried, when they went down, gold, silver, copper and other metals to the value of at least ten billions of dollars!”
Tom Swift did not seem to be at all surprised by the explosive emphasis with which Ned Newton conveyed this information. He gazed calmly at his friend and manager, and then handed the paper back.
“I haven’t time to look at it now,” said Tom. “But is there anything new in the story? I mean has any of the wealth been recovered lately—or is it in a way to be?”
“Yes!” exclaimed Ned. “It is! A company has been formed in Japan for the purpose of using a new kind of diving bell, invented by an American, it seems. The inventor claims that in his machine he can go down deeper than ever man went before, and bring up a lot of this lost ocean wealth.”
“Well, every so often an inventor, or some one who calls himself that, crops up with a new proposal for cleaning up the untold millions on the floor of the Atlantic or the Pacific,” replied Tom. “Mind you, I’m not saying it isn’t there. Everybody knows that hundreds of ships carrying gold and silver have gone down in storms or been sunk in war. And some of the gold and silver has been recovered by divers—I admit that. In fact, if you recall, my father and I perfected a new style diving dress a few years ago that was successfully used in getting down to a wreck off the Cuban coast. A treasure ship went down there, and I believe they recovered a large part of the gold bullion—or perhaps it was silver.
“But this diving bell stunt isn’t new, and it hasn’t been successful. Of course a man can go down to a greater depth in a thick iron diving bell than he can in a diving suit. That’s common knowledge. But the trouble with a diving bell is that it can’t be moved about as a man can move about in a diving suit. The man in the bell can’t get inside the wreck, and it’s there where the gold or silver is usually to be found.”
“Can’t they blow the wreck apart with dynamite, and scatter the gold on the bottom of the ocean?” asked Ned.
“Yes, they could do that, but usually they scatter it so far, and the ocean currents so cover it with sand, that it is impossible ever to get it again. I admit that if a wreck is blown apart a man in a diving bell can perhaps get a small part of it. But the limitations of a diving bell are so well recognized that several inventors have tried adjusting movable arms to the bell, to be operated by the man inside.”
“Did they work?” asked Ned.
“After a fashion, yes. But I never heard of any case where the gold and silver recovered paid for the expenses of making the bell and sending men down in it. For it takes the same sort of outfit to aid the man in the diving bell as it does the diver in his usual rubber or steel suit. Air has to be pumped to him, and he has to be lowered and raised.”
“Well, isn’t there any way of getting at this gold on the floor of the ocean?” asked Ned, his enthusiasm a little cooled by the practical “cold water” Tom had thrown.
“Oh, yes, of course there is, in a way,” was the answer of the young inventor. “Don’t you remember how my father and I, with Mr. Damon and Captain Weston, went in our submarine, the Advance, and discovered the wreck of the Boldero?”
“I do recall that,” admitted Ned.
“Well,” resumed Tom, “there was a case of showing how much trouble we had. An ordinary diving outfit never would have answered. We had to locate the wreck, and a hard time we had doing it. Then, when we found it, we had to ram the old ship and blow it apart before we could get inside. Even after that we just happened to discover the gold, as it were. I’m only mentioning this to show you it isn’t so easy to get at the wealth under the sea as writers in Sunday newspaper supplements think it is.”
“I believe you, Tom. And yet it seems a shame to have all those millions going to waste, doesn’t it?” And Ned spoke as a banker and financial man, who is not happy unless money is earning interest all the while.
“Well, a billion of dollars is a lot,” Tom admitted. “And when you think of all that have been sunk, say even in the last hundred years, it amazes one. But still, all the gold and silver was hidden in the earth before it was dug out, and now it’s only gone back where it came from, in a way. We got along before men dug it out and coined it into money, and I guess we’ll get along when it’s under water. No use worrying over the ocean treasures, as far as I’m concerned.”
“You’re a hopeless proposition!” laughed Ned. “You’d never make a banker, or a Napoleon of finance.”
“That’s why my father and I got you to look after our financial affairs,” and Tom smiled. “You’re just the one—with your interest-bearing mind—to keep us off the shoals of business trouble.”
“Yes, I suppose I can do that, while you and your father go on inventing giant cannons, great searchlights, submarines, and airships,” conceded Ned. “But this, to me, did look like an easy way of making money.”
“How’s that, Ned?” asked Tom, a new note coming into his voice. “Were you thinking of going to Japan and taking a hand in the undersea search?”
“No. But stock in this company is being sold, and shareholders stand to win big returns—if the wrecks are come upon.”
“That’s just it!” exclaimed Tom. “If they find the wrecks! And let me tell you, Ned, that there’s a mighty big ‘if’ in it all. Do you realize how hard it is to find anything on the ocean, to say nothing of something under it?”
“I hadn’t thought of it.”
“Well, you’d better think of it. You know on the ocean sailors have to locate a certain imaginary position by calculation, using the sun and stars as guides. Of course, they have navigation down pretty fine, and a good pilot can get to a place on the surface of the ocean and meet another craft there almost as well as you and I can make an appointment to meet at Main and Broad streets at a certain hour.
“But lots of times there are errors in calculations or a storm comes up hiding the sun and stars, and, instead of a captain getting to where he wants to, he’s anywhere from one to a hundred miles out. Now the location of Broad and Main Streets doesn’t change even in a storm.
“And I’m not saying that a location on an ocean changes. I’m only saying that the least disturbance or error in calculation makes it almost impossible to find the exact spot. And if it’s that hard on the surface, where you can see what you’re doing, how much harder is it in regard to something on the bottom of the sea? So don’t take any stock in these ocean treasure recovering companies. They may not be fakes, but they’re mighty uncertain.”
“Oh, I don’t know that I was really going to buy any stock in this Japanese concern, Tom. I only thought it would be interesting to think about. And perhaps you might sell them a submarine or
some of your diving apparatus.”
“Nothing doing, Ned. We’ve got other plans, my father and I. There’s that new tractor for use in the big wheat-growing belt, to say nothing of—”
Tom’s remarks were interrupted by voices outside his office door. One voice, in particular, rose above the others. It said:
“No can go in! The Master he am busily! No can go in!”
“Nonsense, Koku!” exclaimed a man, and at the sound of his voice Tom and Ned smiled. “Nonsense! Of course I can go in! Why, bless my watch fob, I must go in! I’ve got the greatest proposition to lay before Tom Swift that he ever heard of! There’s at least a million in it! Let me pass, Koku!”
“Mr. Damon!” murmured Tom Swift. “I wonder what he has on his mind now?”
As he spoke the door opened rather violently and a short, stout man, evidently much excited, fairly burst into the room, followed, more sedately, by a stranger.
CHAPTER II
A STRANGE OFFER
“Hello, Tom Swift! Hello, Ned! Glad to see you both! Busy, as usual, I’ll wager. Bless my check book! I never saw you when you weren’t busy at some scheme or other, Tom, my boy. But I won’t take up much of your time. Tom Swift, let me introduce my friend, Mr. Dixwell Hardley. Mr. Hardley, shake hands with Tom Swift, one of the youngest, and yet one of the greatest, inventors in the world! I’ve told you a little about him, but it would take me all day to tell you what he really has done and—”
“Hold on, Mr. Damon!” laughed Tom, as he shook hands with the man whom Mr. Damon had named Dixwell Hardley. “Hold on, if you please. There’s a limit to it, you know, and already you’ve said enough about me to—”
“Bless my ink bottle, Tom, I haven’t said half enough!” interrupted the little, eccentric man. “Wait until you hear what he has done, Mr. Hardley. Then, if you don’t say he’s the very chap for your wonderful scheme, I’m mighty much mistaken! And shake hands with Ned Newton, too. He’s Tom’s financial manager, and of course he’ll have something to say. Though when he hears how you are going to turn over a couple of million dollars or more, why, I know he’ll be on our side.”
Ned’s eyes sparkled at the mention of the money. In truth he dealt in dollars and cents for the benefit of Tom Swift. Ned shook hands with Mr. Hardley and Tom motioned Mr. Damon and his friend to chairs.
“Now, Tom,” went on the strange little man, “I know you’re busy. Bless my adding machine, I never saw you when—”
At that moment there arose in the corridor outside Tom’s private office a discord of voices, in which one could be heard exclaiming:
“Now yo’ clear out oh heah! Massa Tom done tole me to sweep dish yeah place, an’ ef yo’ doan let me alone, why—why—”
“Huh! Radicate him big stiff—dat’s what! Big stiff! Too stiff for sweep Master’s floor. Koku sweep one hand!”
“Oh, yo’ t’ink ’case yo’ is sich a big giant, yo’ kin git de best ob ole black Rad! But I’ll show yo’ dat—”
“Excuse me a moment,” said Tom, with a smile to his guests as he arose. “Eradicate and Koku are at it again, I’m sorry to say. I’ll have to go out and arbitrate the strike,” and he left the room.
While he is settling the differences between his faithful old black servant and Koku, the giant, I will take the opportunity of telling my new readers something about Tom Swift.
Those who are familiar with the previous books of this series may skip this part. But it will give my new audience a better insight into this story if they will bear with me a moment and peruse these few lines.
As related in the first book, “Tom Swift and His Motor Cycle,” the hero seemed born an inventive genius. It was this inventive faculty which enabled him to take the motor cycle that tried to climb a tree with Mr. Wakefield Damon on it and make the wreck into a serviceable bit of mechanism. Thus Tom became acquainted with Mr. Damon, who among other eccentricities, was always “blessing” something personal.
Tom Swift lived in the city of Shopton with his father and their faithful housekeeper, Mrs. Baggert. It was so named because the Swift shops were an important industry there. Tom’s father, as well as Tom himself, was an inventor of note, and employed many men in building machines of various kinds. During the Great War the services of Tom and his father had been dedicated to the government.
There are a number of books dealing with Tom’s activities, the list of titles of which may be found at the beginning of this volume.
Sufficient to say here, that Tom invented and operated motor boats, airships, and submarines. In addition he traveled on many expeditions with Mr. Damon, Ned, and others. He went among the diamond makers and it was when he escaped from captivity that he managed to bring away Koku, the giant, with him. Since then Koku and Eradicate Sampson, the faithful colored man, had periodic quarrels as to who should serve the young inventor.
Besides inventing and using many machines of motive power, Tom Swift engaged in other industries. He helped dig a big tunnel, he constructed a photo-telephone, a great searchlight and a monster cannon. Occasionally he had searched for treasure, once under the sea, with considerable success.
Of late his and his father’s industries had become so important that a number of new buildings had been constructed and the plant greatly enlarged. Ned Newton, who had once worked in a Shopton bank, became financial manager for Tom and his father, and plenty of work he found with which to occupy himself.
Just prior to the opening of this story Tom had perfected a noiseless aeroplane—or one so nearly silent as to justify the name. The details of it will be found in the book called “Tom Swift and His Air Scout.” In this mechanism of the air Tom had had some wonderful experiences, and they had not been at home more than a few weeks when New Newton broached the subject of undersea wealth.
The talk of Tom and his financial manager was interrupted by the arrival of Mr. Damon and the stranger he had introduced as Mr. Hardley.
Eradicate, or “Rad,” and Koku, have been mentioned. Rad was an ancient colored man who once owned a mule named Boomerang. Sampson was the colored servant’s last name, and he declared he had chosen the one “Eradicate” because in his younger days he was a great cleaner and whitewasher, “eradicating” the dirt, so to speak.
Boomerang had, some time since, gone where all good mules go, though Eradicate declared he would get another and call him Boomerang II. But, so far, he had not done so.
Rad, though too old to do heavy work, still believed he was indispensable to the welfare of Tom and his father; and as the giant Koku, who was physically an immense man, held the same view, it followed there were frequent clashes between the two, as on the occasion just mentioned.
“What was the matter, Tom?” asked Ned, when the young inventor came back into the room.
“Oh, the same old story,” replied Tom. “Rad wanted to sweep the hall, and Koku insisted he was to do it.”
“What’d you do, Tom?” asked Mr. Damon.
“I settled it by having Rad sweep this hall and sending Koku to do another—a bigger one I told him. He likes hard work, so he was pleased. Now we’ll have it quiet for a little while. Did I understand you to say, Mr. Damon, that—er—Mr. Hardley I believe the name is—had a proposition to make to me?”
“That’s exactly it, my dear Mr. Swift!” broke in the man in question. “I have a wonderful offer to make you, and I’m sure you will admit that it will be well worth your while to consider and accept it. There will be at least a million in it—”
“Bless my check book, I thought you said several millions!” exclaimed Mr. Damon.
“So I did,” was the rather nettled answer. “I was about to say, Mr. Damon, that there will be at least a million in it for Mr. Swift, and another million for myself. There may be more, but I want to be conservative.”
“Talking in millions, and calling himself conservative,” mused Ned Newton. “Somehow or other I don’t just cotton to this fellow!”
“When our mutual friend, Mr. Damon, told me
about you, my dear Mr. Swift,” went on Mr. Hardley, “I at once came to the conclusion that you were the very man I wanted to do business with. I’m sure it will be to our mutual advantage.”
Tom Swift said nothing. He was willing to let the other talk, while he waited to see how far he would go. And, as Tom said afterward, he, as had Ned, took an instinctive dislike to Mr. Hardley. He could not say definitely what it was, but that was his feeling. That he might be mistaken, he admitted frankly. Time alone could tell.
“Have you a half hour to give me while it explain matters?” asked Mr. Hardley. “I may go farther and say I need considerable time to go into all the details. May I speak now?”
To tell the truth Tom Swift had many important matters to consider, and, in addition, Ned Newton was prepared to go over some financial ends of the business with Tom. But the young inventor felt that, in justice to his friend Mr. Damon, who had brought Mr. Hardley, he could do no less than give the stranger a hearing. But only the introduction by Mr. Damon brought this about.
“I shall be glad to hear what you have to say, Mr. Hardley,” said Tom, as courteously as he could. “I will not go so far as to say that my time is unlimited, but I will listen to you now if you care to go into details.”
“That’s good!” exclaimed the visitor. “I’m sure that when you have listened you will agree with me.”
“He’s a little bit too sure!” mused Ned.
“Bless my pocketbook, Tom, but there are millions in it!” exclaimed Mr. Damon. “Literally millions, Tom!”
Mr. Hardley settled himself comfortably in his chair and looked from Tom to Ned.
“May I speak freely here?” he asked, with obvious intent.
“You may,” the young inventor answered. “Mr. Newton is my financial manager, and I do nothing of importance without consulting him. You may regard him as a member of the firm, in fact, as he does own some stock. My father is practically retired, and I do not trouble him with unimportant details. So Mr. Newton and I are prepared to listen to you.”
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