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Ned Newton’s call to Tom Swift was answered an instant after it was uttered by the appearance of the young inventor himself in the doorway of his private shop.

“Tom! Tom!” cried Ned again. “What does it mean?”

“Yes!” gasped Mr. Damon. “Explain!”

“Explain what?” demanded Tom, smiling at his friends.

“That!” answered Ned, pointing to the scattered money, his knife, the steel cane, the piece of machinery and Koku, all on the ground at the foot of the east wall of Tom’s shop. That is, Koku had been on the ground, but he was now getting up. “What does it mean, Tom?”

“Oh, that,” and Tom smiled again. “Well, I’m sorry this happened. I didn’t know you were so near or I shouldn’t have started it.”

“Started what?” asked Ned.

“My new invention. I hope it did you no harm. It’s powerful, I know, even in its present form, but——”

“No harm!” exclaimed Mr. Damon. “Look at that!” He pointed to the holes in his trousers through which his coins had been forcibly pulled to snap against the wooden side of Tom’s shop.

“And see here!” went on Ned, indicating the large, single hole through which his knife had left him.

“Sorry,” Tom Swift murmured. “I had no idea—but what’s the matter with you, Koku?” he asked as the giant, with a bewildered look on his face, walked toward the piece of machinery.

“Koku not let go,” was the only answer. “Then um get bumped!”

“I’m sorry,” said Tom again. “I had no idea anyone was within the zone of its pull.”

“What in the world is this mysterious force, Tom?” demanded Ned.

“Come inside,” invited the chief owner of the Shopton works, “and I’ll explain it and show it to you. This is my latest invention.”

Now, while Ned and Mr. Damon are going into the shop with Tom Swift, will probably be the best opportunity of introducing new readers to the hero of this series of stories.

Tom Swift was an inventor of world-wide reputation. Starting in a humble way with his father, Barton Swift, who in his day was noted, Tom had advanced into the foremost ranks. His father was now old and feeble and Tom had assumed the burden of the Works.

The first volume of this series is called “Tom Swift and His Motorcycle,” and it was after he had purchased from Mr. Wakefield Damon a machine which tried to run that eccentric man up a tree, that Tom began his career. Mr. Damon, disgusted with his mishap, sold Tom the motorcycle for a low price. Tom repaired it and had some wonderful adventures with it. Then began his inventive work and in subsequent volumes his career is detailed fully.

In motor boats, airships, submarines and war tanks, making, with the help of his father, these machines in his own shop, Tom began to attract notice in scientific circles. His wizard camera, his photo-telephone, his big dirigible brought him much fame. It was on his trip in an airship to a distant land that Tom found Koku, the giant, and brought him back to Shopton, the town where Tom had lived with his widowed father and Mrs. Baggert, the housekeeper. Shopton was inland, on the shore of Lake Carlopa. Another member of the Swift household was Eradicate Sampson, an aged Negro, as devoted to Tom as was Koku, and between these two servants existed bitter rivalry because of this same devotion. Peace was usually restored by young Mrs. Tom Swift, who had joined the family some little time before.

Ned Newton, a Shopton youth whose friendship Tom had held since their early days, was now general manager of the Works. He helped Tom in many ways, as did Garrett Jackson, the shop manager. Mr. Swift was now too old to do very much, but his valuable advice was often sought by his devoted son.

The book immediately preceding this one is entitled “Tom Swift and His Sky Train,” and relates how Tom evolved the idea of a string of glider cars, or motorless airplanes, to be hauled along through the sky by a powerful airship, much in the same manner as a land locomotive hauls Pullmans and day coaches. The separate gliders could be picked up in mid-air or released from the hauling plane by means of clever devices invented by Tom. Perfecting his sky train, Tom and his friends had many perilous adventures aboard, and by winning a sensational race Tom greatly bettered his own fortunes.

Following the completion of the sky train, Tom rested. Then he went into seclusion, sending word that he could not see even his closest friends, Mr. Damon and Ned Newton. Though they wondered at this, they knew Tom well enough to feel sure he had good reasons for his strange actions.

Then the period of seclusion came to an end when the two friends received word to call at Tom’s shop on a certain day. It was taken to mean that he had finished work on something important, and the calls of Ned and Mr. Damon (with his blessings) had been punctuated in the strange manner that has been noted—a demonstration of a mysterious force.

“There she is, gentlemen!” exclaimed Tom, pointing to a queer-appearing machine in the middle of his big, experimental room. It was attached to a whirling dynamo, the purr and hum of which was in evidence, though a disconnected switch between the dynamo and the machine proper seemed to indicate that the power had been cut off temporarily. What looked to be the main part of the machine was a shiny metal disk pointing toward the east wall of the room.

“She works!” cried Tom enthusiastically. “I invited you here, gentlemen, after a secluded period of hard work, to tell you that she works!”

“I’ll say she does!” murmured Ned, looking ruefully at the hole in his trousers through which his knife had escaped. “She works only too well.”

“Never mind,” Tom chuckled, “I’ll buy you a new pair of pants.”

“Don’t take the price out of my salary,” begged Ned.

“I won’t,” Tom promised. “But I’m tickled pink! She works!”

“Was it that,” asked Mr. Damon, pointing to the machine with its polished disk, “which pulled my metal cane out of my hands?”

“I rather think it was,” Tom answered with a smile. “Pulling is one of the best things my new invention does.”

“And did it pull my money through my trousers?” Mr. Damon went on, looking at several holes.

“Oh, golly!” chuckled Tom. “I see I’ll have to get you some new pants, also.”

“You’ll have to, Tom, if you don’t want my wife over here after you,” went on the eccentric man. “She’s very fussy about my clothes.”

“Don’t worry,” said the young inventor. Then up spoke Koku:

“Master,” he asked, “did um knock Koku down an’ try take iron Master told me bring um?”

“Yes, Koku,” replied Tom, “my giant magnet was responsible for all that happened in the last few minutes. As I said,” he went on, “I’m sorry, gentlemen, it inconvenienced you so much, and if I had had any idea you were so near, I should not have turned on the power. But I’m glad it was no worse. Koku seems to have got the worst of it.”

“You should have seen him being dragged along with that metal contraption he carried,” remarked Mr. Damon.

“He would have been all right if he had let go, I suppose,” Ned said, knowing something about magnets.

“Koku no let go!” spoke the giant obstinately. “Maybe um black Rad he let go, but not Koku!”

“I guess that was the trouble,” Tom said. “Well, it was one of the best demonstrations I could ask for, besides the official tests I made on the scale machine,” he said, indicating an apparatus connected with the new device. “It shows that my giant magnet will work.”

“Is that what you call it?” asked Ned, walking curiously about the apparatus.

“Yes. Giant magnet. Don’t you think it’s a good name?”

“It might be if the magnet was bigger,” Ned replied. “But I don’t consider that anything like a giant,” and he indicated the polished disk.

“Oh,” answered Tom, “I see. Well, this is only a small working model. Now that I have proved that my principle is right, I am going ahead and build a magnet that really will be a giant. Not so much in size, perhaps, because if it were too big it would be awkward to handle. But a giant in force.”

“What’s the object of it all?” asked Mr. Damon. “I mean, will it have any practical use, Tom? I suppose I needn’t have asked that. But a magnet is nothing new. I used to play with a small one when I was a boy. And more than once, in railroad yards, I have seen crane magnets picking up and loading into trucks big bunches of scrap metal and pig iron. So if you have invited us here just to show us an ordinary electric magnet, why——”

“This can’t be an ordinary magnet!” broke in Ned. “The demonstration Tom unconsciously staged for us and Koku,” he went on, “proves that.” He glanced at the hole in his trousers. “I’ve seen those railroad yard magnets, Mr. Damon. They are powerful, but, though I have been close to them, none of them ever pulled my knife out of my pocket before.”

“No, come to think of it, and they didn’t pick my pockets of all the coins I had,” admitted the odd man. “Bless my shirt studs, Tom, there must be something different about this magnet of yours.”

“There is. As I said, it won’t be so much of a giant in size when it’s completed, as it will be in power and force. As you witnessed, even this small model exerted a terrific power at a distance. It pulled your cane away from you, Mr. Damon, and it bested Koku who tried to hold back with the piece of metal he carried. That will be nothing to what my completed machine will do. It will not be small in size, either, compared to other electro-magnets. It will be the biggest and most powerful magnet on earth. Of course, if you are looking for something the size of a dirigible, you’ll be disappointed. It’s the power, and not so much the size, that I’m banking on.”

“Will you be able to make any practical use of it?” asked Ned, whose duty it was to look after the financial interests of the Swift concern. “The magnets used in railroad yards seem to do their work satisfactorily. Why invent a new one?”

“There are several reasons,” Tom said. “If I won’t bore you, I’ll tell you a little something about magnets, though you may know it already. Of course, I need not tell you that there are two principal styles, or kinds, of magnets, permanent and electro. A permanent magnet may be a straight piece of metal, or one bent like a horseshoe. One end, or pole, is negative, the other positive. These magnets are made of steel and are more or less permanently magnetized by means of an electric current. You can magnetize an ordinary sewing needle by rubbing it on a horseshoe magnet.

“These permanent magnets are usually small and weak in pull, though I’m inclined to think that if one were made large enough, it would be very powerful.

“The other sort of magnet,” Tom went on, “is termed electric. It consists, generally, of a core of soft iron about which is wound many layers of insulated wire. When an electric current of the right sort is sent through the wire the soft iron core is magnetized and will attract, and hold, other pieces of metal as long as the current is kept up. As soon as the current is shut off the iron core loses its magnetic force.”

“Then I take it,” Ned remarked, “that this model magnet of yours is an electric one.”

“It is,” Tom said. “If I had not shut off the current, your knife, Ned, your money and your cane, Mr. Damon, and Koku, as long as he clung to the piece of machinery, would still be plastered to my shop wall.”

“Then I’m glad you turned off the current, bless my string beans!” exclaimed Mr. Damon.

“So am I!” Tom said with a laugh. “Well, that, in general, is the history of magnets. A common example of the electric magnet is the one inside your telephone box. That small magnet as well as the magnets of the telegraph machine and the electric bell (whose little cores of soft iron become magnetized and demagnetized by rapid impulses of a make and break electric circuit) cause the bells to tingle and make the telegraph sounder click.”

“Well,” remarked Ned, “I hope you didn’t invent this giant magnet just to ring a doorbell.”

“Indeed I didn’t,” Tom answered. “My giant magnet is the newest thing in its line. Instead of a core of solid iron I am using a combination of hollow segments so that my completed machine, while large in size and a giant in strength, will be of comparatively little weight. In fact, it was the need of a powerful magnet, yet one light in weight, that caused me to invent mine. It came about when I was approached by the head of a scrap metal concern, and, as a matter of fact, I’m making this magnet on his order. If it succeeds, when I make the practical model, I’ll be able to——”

Tom was interrupted by the tinkle of the telephone bell. He talked for a moment, his questions and answers being crisp and sharp, and then he exclaimed:

“No! It can’t be done! I refuse to have anything to do with it. You can take that or leave it!”

With an appearance of anger on his face Tom Swift hung up.