Читать книгу Tom Swift and his Giant Magnet - Howard R Garis - Страница 6
ОглавлениеA SUBMARINE VISITOR
“What was that?” asked Ned, with the interest of an old friend. This he was, as well as manager of the Works.
“He was a stranger to me,” Tom said, “though he identified himself as Joseph Harburg. A man used to having his own way, I judge by what he said to me.”
“What did he want?” asked Ned, as Mr. Damon walked around the model magnet, trying to solve some of its intricacies, while Koku, having left the piece of machinery that had made him so uncomfortable, went out.
“He wanted to horn in on my magnet invention,” Tom replied.
“Horn in?” repeated Ned, well knowing what Tom meant by this expression. “Why, he didn’t help invent it, did he?”
“Not in a thousand years!” exclaimed Tom Swift. “But I may as well set you right on this, Ned, for from the way Harburg talked he is going to make trouble.”
“Trouble?”
“Legal trouble, I mean. He talks of an injunction and all that.”
“An injunction against you getting out this invention of your giant magnet, do you mean?”
“Not that, exactly, no, Ned. But here’s the story. I told you I got the idea of a light weight, but immense and powerful electric magnet from a scrap iron man. This man is Franklin Parlet. He lives in town. His firm is in the business of buying scrap iron and other metal from old auto junk yards, foundries, machine shops and the like. The scrap is shipped to his main storage yard and warehouse sheds in gondola freight cars—that is, cars that are not enclosed.
“Now, Mr. Parlet has been in the habit of unloading this scrap iron from the gondolas to his trucks by means of an electric magnet crane or derrick in the railroad yard. This electric magnet crane, while powerful, can pick up only a limited quantity of scrap at a time. One reason is that the scrap is of various shapes, sizes and weights. If you have ever seen one of these magnetic cranes work, you know it looks like a derrick picking up a lot of giant jack-straws.
“So Parlet came to me and asked if I could invent an electric magnet, working on a derrick-crane principle, that would pick up bigger loads of scrap iron at each operation. If I could, he said he would help finance the manufacture of such cranes, installing one in the railroad yard here and selling others to various scrap metal concerns for good sums, or, better still, renting them. He figured if I could make a magnet that would pick up twice as much scrap as the ones now in use he could save time in carting the stuff to his yard.”
“So you invented the giant magnet one, two, three, just like that?” whimsically asked Ned.
“Well, not quite as easy as that,” Tom replied with a smile. “I ran against several snags and I had hard work. That’s why I went into seclusion. I wanted to devote my whole time to it. I have at last succeeded and now comes this bunch of trouble.”
“You mean Harburg?” Ned inquired.
“Yes. That’s the man. He didn’t have nerve enough to come here and talk to me. Had to hide behind the telephone!” sneered Tom.
“What’s his game?” asked Ned.
“He asks, or, rather, he demands that I let him share in the ownership of the rights to manufacture the giant magnets.”
“What did he base his demand on?”
“For one thing, that he is also in the scrap metal and salvage business and that I have no right to favor one over another, meaning Parlet.”
“But Parlet came to you first.”
“Sure he did. That’s what I told this man.”
“What did he say to that?”
“He said he owned stock in Parlet’s scrap metal company and if I didn’t let him, meaning Harburg, in on the magnet deal he’d put the screws on Parlet, throw a lot of stock on the market, weaken the standing of the concern, then buy the stock back himself until he had a majority vote and could do as he pleased.”
“Whew!” Ned whistled. “He seems to mean business!”
“I’m afraid so,” admitted Tom.
“What can you do?”
“I don’t know,” Tom answered. “I suppose I’ll have to notify Mr. Parlet and be advised by him. I guess there’ll be a financial fight. I wish,” Tom went on wearily, for he had worked hard in the last few weeks, “I wish these business men would leave me out of that end of it. I don’t claim to be anything but an inventor.”
“But you’re a good one!” declared Ned.
“That’s neither here nor there,” said Tom. “It bothers me to have to go into all this hocus-pocus business about freezing out, getting control and all that. But I’m firm on one thing!” he exclaimed.
“What’s that?”
“I’m going to control this magnet myself. While I invented it, at Parlet’s request, I had a paper drawn up which gives me the sole control. I am obligated only to rent him or sell him a magnet under certain conditions. He has an option to purchase stock in a company I may form to make the machines, but this doesn’t include Harburg. That man will not dictate to me!”
“He tried that, did he?”
“He tried it, yes,” admitted Tom with a grim smile. “I told him where to get off. Though I don’t suppose he’ll get,” he added with a sigh. All this business detail annoyed him.
“You think he’s determined?” asked Ned.
“He seemed so. Threatened that I’d hear from him again and so would Parlet. Well, let him do his worst. He can’t take away from me the fact that I’ve invented the most powerful electro magnet on earth,” and Tom grinned more happily. “Soon I’ll build the real big one, patterned after this small model. Yes, Rad, what is it?” he asked as the old colored man shuffled into the room without knocking, a privilege he claimed because of long service.
“ ’Scuse me, Mas’r Tom,” said Rad in quavering tones, “but Missie Swift she done ask ef you can come an’ talk to her a minute.”
“Sure I’ll come, Rad. Right away. Excuse me,” Tom said to his callers.
“She has first call, always!” chuckled Ned. “Hop to it, old man.”
“Mary and Tom are an ideal married couple, aren’t they?” remarked Mr. Damon as Tom hurried to the house in answer to his wife’s summons.
“Indeed they are,” admitted Ned.
“Bless my rubber boots!” went on the odd man, “but that’s the way it should be in this world! I hope Tom always remains as happy as he is now,” he went on.
“Same here!” murmured Ned. “Say, he certainly has a great thing here,” he continued.
“Meaning the giant magnet?”
“Yes. I can already see other possibilities for it than hoisting big loads of mixed scrap iron off railroad cars.” Ned, being a young business man, began to speculate about the future.
Meanwhile Tom, having outdistanced aged Eradicate, was approaching the house where he lived with his young and pretty bride—the old Swift homestead.
“I wonder,” mused the young inventor, “how the news of my giant magnet leaked out? I wanted to keep it secret. That’s why I didn’t let even Ned or Mr. Damon call until I had it completed. Parlet was sworn to secrecy, and it was to his own interests not to mention it. Yet this Harburg knows about it almost as soon as I put the finishing touches to my model. There’s something wrong, somewhere.
“I hope,” mused on Tom, as he went up the steps, “that there is no leak in my own office and shop. I’ve had traitors enough around me. I don’t want any more. I’ll have to do some investigating, though.”
A young and pretty woman heard Tom’s footsteps on the porch and opened the door for him.
“You got my message, Tom?” she asked.
“Yes,” he replied. “Anything wrong, Mary?”
“No, something quite right, I should say. We have a submarine visitor.”
“A submarine visitor!” exclaimed Tom. “You don’t mean,” he went on, “that someone has launched a submarine in Lake Carlopa?”
“Not exactly,” laughed Mary. “The lake is hardly big enough for that, though I seem to remember, Tom, that you once ran a small model of your sub on the lake.”
“I did. But who is this visitor you speak of, and what does he want?”
“He’s my good-looking cousin, in the U. S. Navy,” answered Mary. “His name is Lieutenant Joseph Nestor and as for what he wants, I’ll let him tell you himself, for he only just now arrived. He says he is in trouble, so I sent for you in a hurry. Here, Joe!” she called.
A young Annapolis graduate came out on the porch, to greet Tom with a hand clasp and a smile as he said:
“I think I know more about you than you know about me, Mr. Swift. As long as I can remember, I have heard Mary talk about your great inventions. There is one, in particular, I’m interested in as it is in line with my own work. I’m hoping you can help us out.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Tom modestly said. “But with whom are you associated and what is the trouble?”
“I’m associated with Uncle Sam,” answered the lieutenant with a laugh, “and the trouble has to do with the under-sea telephone on the new big sub, the S.V.J. 13 to which I am assigned. I’m wondering if you can solve a puzzling problem for us?”
“I can’t promise, until I know what the trouble is,” Tom answered. “But you can rest assured, in advance, that I’ll be glad to do anything I can for you, and, of course, for Uncle Sam.”
“Well, I’ll tell you about it,” began the lieutenant, when there came a sudden interruption in the form of a man striding up the front path.
“Are you Tom Swift?” brusquely began the stranger, looking at the young lieutenant.
“I haven’t that honor,” was the answer. “There is Mr. Swift,” and the officer indicated the young man near whom Mary was standing.
“Oh, so you’re the inventor of the giant magnet, are you?” asked the man.
Tom started in surprise. His secret was becoming more widely known than he had dreamed and more than he cared about.
“Who are you?” Tom asked.
“I’m Joseph Harburg,” was the crisp answer. “I was talking with you on the telephone a little while ago and I’ve come in person to close the matter. I’d like to have a talk with you!”
