BIG OFFERS
TOM SWIFT and Ned Newton glanced at each other. In spite of the apparent
gravity of the situation the young men could not help smiling. For well
they knew that voice, and they could judge what had happened.
“It’s Mr. Damon!” exclaimed Ned.
“And he must have made a forced landing from an aeroplane on the roof
above us!” added Tom. “Lucky for us he didn’t come through.”
“Lucky for him, too, I should say!”
Ned made a dash for a stairway leading to the broad, flat roof of the
building that housed Tom’s executive offices and also one of the shops
of the Swift Construction Company. The young inventor followed his
financial manager. Others of the plant—workmen, machinists, and
apprentices—were also on their way to the roof.
Tom and Ned, going up a private stairway and through a scuttle, were the
first to reach the scene. There a curious sight met their eyes. Seated
in a small monoplane—a kind invented by Tom Swift himself—was Mr.
Wakefield Damon, a friend of the family, a very eccentric but lovable
character, forever “blessing” any and everything that took his fancy.
“Hello, boys!” he greeted Tom and Ned, blinking his eyes at them in a
curious fashion.
“Well, for the love of spark plugs!” cried Ned. “What happened?”
“Are you hurt?” Tom asked more practically, though a quick glance
assured him that the plane was whole, though one landing wheel was
slightly out of true, and that the solitary passenger was still in the
small cockpit.
“Bless my porous plaster, Tom, I don’t know whether I’m hurt or not!”
answered Mr. Damon. “I came down so suddenly! I was aiming to land in
your regular flying field, but something went wrong with the
controls—it’s a new plane, I haven’t had it long—and I find myself
here.”
“Mighty lucky you are to find yourself, I’ll say,” murmured Ned, as a
crowd of Tom’s men gathered about the plane on the roof.
“This smash,” remarked Tom, as he and Ned were helping the odd man from
his aeroplane, “reminds me of the first time I ever saw you, Mr. Damon.
You were riding a motorcycle.”
“And it tried to climb a tree with me! Bless my rubber boots, well do I
remember that!”
It was owing to Mr. Damon’s disgust over the accident to his motorcycle
that Tom had been able to secure it for a small sum. As related in the
first volume of this series, “Tom Swift and His Motor Cycle,” the young
inventor was started on his sensational career by the possession of this
battered machine, which he repaired and got in running order. On it he
had some exciting rides.
Tom was in his early manhood. He, and his aged and somewhat invalid
father, an inventor of note, lived in the Swift homestead in the town of
Shopton on Lake Carlopa. Tom’s mother was dead, but he and his father
were well looked after by Mrs. Baggert, an efficient housekeeper. Of
late years Barton Swift had not taken much active part in the rapidly
growing business, though Tom always consulted his father on matters of
importance.
It was at the suggestion of Mary Nestor, for whom Tom had a very great
admiration, that the young inventor engaged his friend and boyhood chum,
Ned Newton, to look after the business matters of the Swift Construction
Company. Tom never had reason to regret that decision. For with Ned to
look after money matters, see to contracts, and the like, Tom and his
father were left free to exercise their inventive ability.
The Swift Company had gone into many lines of activity, from building
airships and aeroplanes to constructing submarines and giant cannon for
the government. These brought Tom and his associates money and fame, and
also hard work.
Just prior to the opening of this story Tom had developed a new drill
and a system of sinking shafts for oil wells, and when, as related in
“Tom Swift and His Great Oil Gusher,” he successfully demonstrated how
quickly he could get down to the oil-containing sand, he made another
big amount of money, not only for the Swift Company, but for the Goby
family as well.
It was after this that he began to think of getting together in one
central place all his drawings, patent rights, secret formulae and the
like. To this end he had had constructed the strong chest, and he and
Ned had barely finished putting into it most of the valuable documents
when the crash on the roof came.
“He doesn’t seem to be hurt, Tom,” remarked Garret Jackson, Tom’s shop
manager, as he laid Mr. Damon on a pile of coats and jackets which some
workmen hastily spread on the roof.
“Hurt! Bless my doctor’s bill, I’m not hurt at all!” exclaimed the odd
man. “I’m shaken up, but I’m more worried about the plane than about
myself. Is it all right, Tom? I tried to avoid the chimney, but I’m
afraid one wheel grazed it.”
“Yes, that’s what happened,” replied the young inventor, as soon as he
had made sure his friend was not hurt and had had time to inspect the
craft. “You damaged it a little. But I can easily put on another wheel.
I have some spare ones for that model.”
“Have you, Tom? That’s fine! Put one on and I’ll fly off your roof. You
may charge me storage if I stay here too long,” and Mr. Damon laughed in
a way which showed, better than anything else, that he had suffered no
ill effects from the sudden ending of his flight.
“Are you going to trust yourself again to that plane?” asked Mr.
Jackson.
“Of course I’m going to fly again!” cried the odd man. “A little bump
like this doesn’t disturb me. I’ve been in worse smash-ups; haven’t I,
Tom?”
“Off hand, I should say you had,” was the smiling answer.
“Besides, I want to learn how to run this jigger!” cried Mr. Damon,
sitting up on the pile of workmen’s garments while the men gathered
smilingly about him, for they all knew him. “What did I do wrong, Tom?
Or is the steering gear out of order?”
“It seems to be all right,” answered the young inventor, who had been
looking at the mechanism. “Tell me just what happened.”
“Well, as I say, I was coming over to see you. Or, if I didn’t say that
before, I tell you now. I have a big offer for you, Tom Swift, a most
important offer. I’ll get to that in a moment. But I was coming over in
this plane, which I bought only yesterday, and I decided to fly across
your shop and land in the meadow.
“But, just as I got here, I felt the machine dip suddenly. First I
thought I had struck an air pocket, but I didn’t have time really to
decide what it was before I came down with a crash. Luckily I was able
to straighten her out a little before I struck, so I made a slanting
landing. Otherwise I might have gone through the roof.”
“And right down on our heads!” exclaimed Ned. “Mighty glad you didn’t!”
“So am I,” said Mr. Damon. “But what’s wrong, Tom? I want to know so
that the same thing won’t happen again.”
“I guess you forgot that you were in a monoplane instead of a biplane,
Mr. Damon,” he answered. “You banked too much on the turn.”
“That’s it, Tom! I remember now! I was making the curve to head straight
for the meadow, and it was then a sort of side slip came.”
“Yes,” remarked the young inventor, “you spilled too much air from
beneath your wing tips. You see in a biplane, with two surfaces, the air
is held in a sort of pocket and you can afford to make a sharper bank on
the turn. But in monoplanes you must be more careful.”
“I will, after this,” promised Mr. Damon, as he arose and walked about,
albeit a bit gingerly as though making sure he had no broken bones or
strained tendons.
“Here, Koku!” called Tom to his giant helper. “Hold up this plane while
some of the men take off the damaged wheel.”
“Sure, Master, Koku do,” was the reply.
“Go on!” cried another voice. “It doan need no big fat giant to lift a
li’l machine like dat! I’ll do it fo’ you, Massa Tom!”
An old colored man with a fringe of white hair around his black pate
pushed through the crowd of workmen toward the giant who was already
preparing to tilt the plane so the wheel could be removed.
“You go or Koku push you!” warned the giant with a threatening look at
Eradicate Sampson.
“Huh! You go on!” was the contemptuous response, and there might have
been a battle then and there had not Tom interposed.
“Rad,” he said, “you let Koku attend to lifting the plane. It’s a bit
heavy in spite of its small size. You go down to the storeroom and bring
up the extra wheel.”
“Hah, you ain’t so smart as you t’inks you is!” taunted the colored man
as he departed on his errand, satisfied now that he could help his young
master.
“They’ll soon have the machine in shape for you, Mr. Damon, if you
insist on trusting yourself to it again,” said Tom, as he gave
instructions to his men. “And while you are waiting, came on down and
talk to dad. He’s always glad to see you.”
“All right, Tom, I’ll do that. At the same time I can attend to the
matter that brought me over here. Bless my Liberty Bonds, Tom, but it’s
very important! Big business, you know!”
“Ned and dad and I are always ready to talk business,” remarked Tom, as
he led the way to his office in which stood the new chest of secrets.
Mr. Swift was there, looking over some papers. At the sight of the chest
Mr. Damon exclaimed:
“Packing up to move, Tom?”
“No, just taking precautions so I won’t lose any of my secrets,” replied
the young inventor. “There are so many of these plans and patents now
that dad and I thought we ought to have them in one place, where we
could easily get at them in a hurry if need be.”
“That’s right,” chimed in Mr. Swift. “You know I’m not as young as I
once was, Damon. I can’t expect to live much longer, and I want
everything in shape for Tom when I go.”
“Nonsense! Bless my life insurance policy!” laughed Mr. Damon, “you’ll
be here for many years, Mr. Swift. And lest you may be losing interest
in life, listen to this offer that I bring you.
“Tom, you remember Mr. Blythe?” he asked, turning to the young inventor.
“Surely! The man who got so excited when he found what my oil well drill
had done?”
“The same, yes. Well, he called on me yesterday. He introduced some
capitalists—big men they are, too, moneyed interests of New York and
all that. Mr. Blythe introduced them to me, and the upshot of it was,
Tom Swift, that they authorized me to make you a big offer for certain
rights in your tidal engine and mill machinery patents. Now look here,
Tom, there are millions in it for you—millions! Why, bless my bank
book, it’s the biggest offer you ever listened to, Tom Swift!”