WHAT CAME OF IT
Queerly as this man acted, Tom Swift could not have left either him
or his car on the road and in the lurch. He would have felt himself
to be as mean as the half intoxicated chauffeur from the Norwalk
garage.
Besides, the young fellow knew without her telling him that Mary
would expect him to do all he could in the emergency, and Mary’s
opinion was, of course, of the first importance to Tom. While the
stranger sat on the bank of the ditch with his baggage about him, not
offering to lift his hand to aid, the young inventor planned and put
into execution a method of rescuing the mired automobile.
He had a small ax in the tool box of the electric runabout. With this
he cut a green, tough sapling about as big around as his shank. This
he used to pry the nose of the stranger’s motor-car out of the mud.
He used the pry to break down the edge of the ditch, too, and
finally he used a couple of nonskid chains to tackle the two cars
together, and with the power of his own machine, used very skilfully,
he finally dragged the other car to the highway.
Meanwhile the owner of that car sat placidly, smoking little,
strong-smelling cigarettes which he rolled himself with dextrous
fingers, and watched the work quite impersonally. Mary disapproved of
cigarettes in any case and she whispered to Tom that she didn’t know
but she was sorry that she had urged him to help the strange man!
“Ach! Brawn is not to be scorned,” said the man, when the motor-car
stood upon its four wheels on the road. “It is not so good like
brains—no, no. But if one has not the brains and the learning, it is
well to be a mechanic, yes?”
Mary grew rosy-red at that. She considered it an insult to Tom Swift.
She might have said something sharp, but her friend interposed, with
a grin:
“They say that a man with brains alone on a desert island will live
where a dull man, possessing only strength, would die. But I bet
a stupid man with good muscles will live better in the haunts of
civilization than a penniless man of brains. What would you do if you
had been marooned here without money and nobody to help you?”
“Ach! You are, perhaps, a philosopher?” grumbled the man.
“You don’t have to possess much book education to be that,” laughed
Tom. “Well, sir, you get in the runabout with the young lady. She
can drive. I’ll try to bring your car along behind. Where are you
stopping in Shopton?” he added, as the man began to gather his
various bags and bundles and pack them into the runabout until there
was scarcely room for the girl to reach the pedals with her feet.
“Is there not a hotel, no?”
“The Shopton House. A commercial hotel.”
“I will try it. This is one vacation. I have but one thing to do
while I am avay from New York. I need the change and fresh air, or I
vould never come to a place like this in answer to any call. No!”
“I wonder what and who he is,” thought Tom Swift, as Mary finally
started the runabout and he, himself, climbed into the other car.
The car had been pretty well shaken up by its plunge into the ditch;
and the engine balked several times before Tom managed to get it to
town. Therefore Mary got far ahead of him with the car’s owner.
When Tom Swift got to the Shopton House he found his electric
runabout standing at the curb. Mary had gone home, for it was now
quite late in the evening. Tom ran the shaken car to the nearest
garage and then went into the hotel to leave word for the stranger
where his property could be found.
“You just had a guest come in, didn’t you?” Tom asked the clerk.
The latter began to grin. “You mean the foreign feller?”
“Some kind of a Dutchman, I guess,” said the young inventor. “What’s
his name?”
“Look on the book and see,” was the reply. “I can’t read it, and I
don’t know what to call him. He not only speaks broken English, but
he writes broken English.”
“Really?” responded Tom, with a laugh. “Let’s take a squint at it.”
He wheeled the register about on its swivel and peered at the crabbed
writing. He could read “NewYork,U.S.of Amerika.” But the name of the
man looked as much like a hen track as it did like anything written
in the English language.
“He’s one of these foreign musicians, I bet,” said the clerk to Tom.
“And he wanted a room with a bath and hot running water!”
“There isn’t anything like that in this house,” answered Tom, with a
laugh.
“If there was, I’d rent it myself,” declared the other. “He sniffed a
lot about ‘de pad accommodations’; but he’s staying the night. Want to
see him?”
“No. I’ve seen enough of him, to tell the truth,” said Tom. “But
you’d better get word to him where his car is. And don’t tell him
anything about me! I don’t want him hunting me up and either thanking
me or trying to pay me.”
But secretly Tom did not believe the queer stranger would ever
consider it necessary to thank those who had helped him out of his
difficulty.
“He’s one more Dutchman with a swelled head,” was the young
inventor’s private comment, as he drove his runabout home.
It was too late to go to Mary’s house again. But in the morning, the
first thing when he reached his private office, he called the Nestor
house. Mrs. Nestor answered the call and Tom knew, by her voice, that
she was much disturbed.
“The doctors were here for a consultation again early this morning,
Tom,” the woman said brokenly. “They seem to have very little hope
that Mr. Nestor will ever be better. And they have given up hope of
the specialist’s coming——”
“You mean the Dr. Raddiker Mary was speaking of?” asked Tom quickly.
“Yes. They expected him yesterday. They find he has left New York
for a vacation and, being such a busy man, he probably will not come
here to consult with our doctors on a single case. They give us no
hope——”
“Oh! Don’t say that, Mrs. Nestor!” Tom interrupted.
“It is the way we both feel,” said Mary’s mother. “If I knew of any
diagnostician or specialist whom we could secure, no matter what it
costs, I would ask you to get him here, Tom.”
“Wait!” cried Tom suddenly. “I’m coming over. There must be some
way——”
He hung up without finishing his sentence. To tell the truth he had
no idea how to help Mrs. Nestor and Mary. But it seemed to him that
it was almost brutal just to remain idle while the sick man slowly
lost strength and vitality.
He had intended giving his entire attention that day to considering
plans for the flying boat that he was determined to build. But his
fears for Mr. Nestor and his sympathy for Mary and her mother would
not allow of that.
He pulled down the roller-top of his desk again and started out of
the shops. He had no idea what he could do to help; and yet milling
about in his brain there was a hazy idea that there _must_ be
something which could be done to aid Mary’s father.
If that Dr. Raddiker had only come to consult upon the case! Mary
had spoken of him so hopefully. Dr. Raddiker. Another of these crazy
foreigners, perhaps—-
The thought of the unreadable writing on the Shopton House register
the evening before suddenly stabbed Tom Swift’s brain like a ray of
light in the darkness. He said afterward that his mind seemed to be
suddenly lit up by a startling thought.
He started on a run for downtown, not even waiting to get out the
car.