A HELPING HAND
Tom Swift, as has been said, did not overlook the value of money
and the good uses to which it might be put. But he did not think
that he wanted any share in Mr. Wakefield Damon’s venture after the
mysterious treasure chest that had been left to him in the interior
areas of Iceland. He was telling Mary Nestor about it that evening as
he was driving her in his electric runabout through the suburbs of
Shopton and out into the country.
If Tom did not go after her and actually insist upon the girl’s
taking a frequent ride with him, Mary would scarcely have had “a
sniff of the open air,” as her mother told her. They were both much
engaged in caring for Mr. Nestor, whose disease at this time evaded
the diagnoses of all the physicians who had attended him.
With Mary, as well as with his father and Ned Newton, Tom usually
discussed the most secret plans regarding his inventions; so, besides
telling Mary about Mr. Damon’s odd predicament, he likewise spoke
of his hope of building a better flying boat than had as yet been
perfected. Some of his ideas upon this subject were not new to the
girl.
“I believe you will achieve a really wonderful thing, Tom,” she told
him, with enthusiasm. “But it will be a monster—bigger than your
great airship that you sold the Government.”
“I am not sure about those details as yet,” Tom said, shaking his
head and looking sharply ahead, for the dusk was gathering fast.
“The idea is just milling in my mind. Yet, I confess, I have had Ned
Newton do a little figuring for me—especially regarding the getting
of estimates for certain parts. Our shops cannot turn out every part
of such a craft any more than we could build all of the electric
locomotive we sold to the Hendrickton and Pas Alos Railroad.”
“Aren’t you afraid, Tom,” Mary asked doubtfully, “to trust outside
people with your plans that way? Somebody in some other shop may
steal your ideas.”
He shook his head, smiling. “No, no. I never trust my plans in full
to any of the construction-works people. I may have my wings built
in one shop, the cabin-boat in another, or the prow in a third. And,
of course, we shall buy the motors outright. No, no. An invention is
like a doctor’s prescription. When it is put together it takes a
pretty good analyst to discover the ingredients. And the parts of an
invention have to be assembled by the mind that dreamed out the whole
contraption.”
“Dear me,” sighed Mary, “I wish some doctor had a prescription that
would help father.”
“I wish so, too!” cried Tom heartily. “When does the specialist
arrive?”
“Dr. Raddiker?”
“Is that his name?”
“Yes. Some kind of a foreigner. A very learned man, I believe,”
Mary said, with rising confidence. “What Dr. Goslap tells mother
and me about him encourages us vastly. Dr. Raddiker is a great
diagnostician.”
“Wonder what sort of a doctor this fellow needs who is coming along
the road?” demanded Tom suddenly. “He’ll have that car climbing the
telephone poles next.”
“Goodness, Tom!” cried Mary, likewise seeing the eccentrically acting
car ahead of them, and evidently heading for Shopton. “He’ll have it
in the ditch next.”
“Great Scott!” shouted Tom. “That’s exactly where he has got it!”
At that moment the car ahead backed around into the hedge on one side
of the highway and then shot across the road and plunged, nose-first,
into the deep ditch on the other side, which was here undefended by
a railing. Tom and Mary heard a wild shout for “Hellup!” and then an
explosion of phrases that the young inventor was glad were uttered in
some foreign tongue, for he feared that they were not polite enough
for Mary’s ear.
Tom Swift speeded up his runabout and they reached the scene of the
accident just as the awkward chauffeur was crawling out of the mud.
The nose of the car was buried in the mire and the occupant of the
tonneau of the car was struggling with the door while he ejaculated
in broken English:
“Hellup! Why for did I let such a dumbskull drive de car? Ach!
I should be shot for my foolishness, undt he should be hung for
inefficiency. Yah! Hellup!”
Mary hopped out of Tom’s car quickly and ran to help the excited
stranger open the door of the closed car. But Tom turned his
attention to the chauffeur. Nothing could be done for the car itself,
he saw at a glance, on its own power.
“Hi!” Tom shouted to the fellow in the ditch. “Go back and shut off
your engine. She is heading for China right now. Want her to go
there?”
“She can go to perdition for all of me!” grumbled the mud-covered
chauffeur. “She’s got the Old Boy in her.”
“For vy you call it me names?” demanded the passenger, indignantly,
just then bursting out of the motor-car. He was a bushy-headed man
with owl-like spectacles and evidently the possessor of a querulous
temper. “He is most insulting! Undt he is the worst driver I ever
had. Dumbskull!”
“You’re the Old Boy, all right, but not the one I meant was in that
engine,” growled the chauffeur sullenly. “You are a crazy nuisance——”
Tom had got out, reached the head of the car, and by leaning down
the ditch side with care, he shut off the thumping engine. He now
swung to look at the muttering chauffeur. The latter was ill-favored
of feature and betrayed frankly that his mental condition had been
brought about by indulgence in liquor.
“You work for Peltin Brothers, at Norwalk,” Tom said sharply. “I’ve
seen you before. This car from their garage?”
“He comes from it, the Norwalk garage,” interposed the strange man
who was now rescuing sundry bundles and bags from the interior of the
car. “The car, it is mine. My other driver leaf me in one lurch, you
say, no? This fellow—ah-ha! He is a low-life. It is not gasoline he
buy for the car, but bad whisky for himself.”
“Well, you are in a bad mess,” Tom said to the driver. “Come on and
let’s see what we can do about getting her up on the road.”
The man shook his head vigorously. He backed away, up the side of
the ditch. When he reached the sound road he started right away from
there, only looking back over his shoulder to bawl:
“I wouldn’t help that crazy guy, or touch that car, for a farm down
east with a pig on’t. You can have it, for all o’ me!”
“Well!” exclaimed Mary, in disgust.
“A fine dog that!” grumbled Tom ruefully.
“A dumbskull!” ejaculated the strange gentleman, standing amid his
baggage.
“Why! How mean!” cried Mary.
“Where were you going, sir?” Tom Swift asked.
“To a place called Shopton. Do you know it?”
“We live there,” said the young inventor briskly. “It is not far.
If nobody else comes along, the young lady will drive you in my
runabout. I will stay until help comes for the car. Or, maybe, we can
get it out of the mud ourselves.”
“Ach! Not me!” cried the stranger. “I must not soil or injure my
hands. I do not lift weights. I am not here to strain my muscles and
rack my nerves for such things as this. Ach, no!”
Tom and Mary stared at each other. They did not know whether to be
amused or disgusted with the stranger. He seemed willing enough to
accept help, but he was not inclined to help himself!
“Well,” Tom said finally, and dryly, “you don’t mind if I try to
recover your car for you?”
“Not at all,” declared the man, with a shrug. “You will do what you
please. But I, I do not aid.”
“But it is your car? You bought and paid for it?”
“Yes, yes! What has that to do with it? I know my place. It is not
working in the muddy ditch over a motor-car. No!”
“I believe you,” muttered Tom to Mary. “His place is somewhere on a
mantelpiece for an ornament.”
“Hush, Tom,” the girl said. “Will you help him?”
“For my own satisfaction, not because I am inclined to play the
Samaritan to such a fellow. I’ll lend the helping hand.”