Читать книгу Tom Swift and his Flying Boat or The Castaways of the Giant Iceberg - Howard R Garis - Страница 6
ОглавлениеA 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.”
