Читать книгу Don Sturdy on the Ocean Bottom or The Strange Cruise of the Phantom - Stratemeyer Edward - Страница 5

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“Butting in some more?” snarled Gold, seeking to pass. “Seems to me you’ve done enough of that for one day.”

“That may be true from your point of view, but it isn’t from mine,” replied the captain. “I’m curious to know why you drove into my car to-day, crumpled up the mudguard and inflicted other damage to the extent of perhaps a hundred dollars or more.”

It seemed as though Gold were about to deny all knowledge of the collision, but there was a tone of certainty in the captain’s charge that made him think better of it.

“So that was your car that was hogging the road, was it?” he blustered. “Why didn’t you move over and give me room to pass?”

“You had plenty of room,” replied the captain. “You simply bore down on us, side-swiped my car and nearly made it turn turtle. It was reckless driving of the worst kind. One or more of the people in the car might easily have been killed.”

“Well, you’re all alive an’ kickin’, ain’t you?” sneered Gold.

“No thanks to you that we are,” returned the captain, keeping control of his temper with difficulty. “You didn’t even stop to see what damage had been done. The hit-and-run idea isn’t very popular with people in this part of the country.”

“There wasn’t any question of hit-an’-run,” growled Gold. “I hardly knew I touched you. But what do you figger that the damage is? I can’t stand here all day.”

The captain named a very moderate figure, and Gold scribbled a check for it, threw it down angrily on the table and stamped out, slamming the door behind him.

“Good riddance!” remarked Don, as from the window he saw the man clamber into his car and drive off.

“The most unpleasant individual I’ve encountered in a long while,” commented Captain Sturdy. “What do you think of his proposition, Amos?”

“I’m not going to accept it,” replied Professor Bruce. “I don’t care to be drawn into what seems to be a sordid political quarrel. Gold, of course, doesn’t care a rap for science. Possibly the man he’s acting for doesn’t, either. The main idea seems to be to down the Governor, to give the opposing political party a handle for an attack on him.”

“Dollars to doughnuts that’s the gist of the whole thing,” acquiesced the captain.

“Who is this Emanuel Rust, anyway?” asked Don. “Ever heard of him before, Uncle Amos?”

“I know that he’s a multi-millionaire,” returned the professor, “and that he’s a publicity seeker. Inordinately vain and likes to be in the limelight. I’ve heard that he has a private press agent. It’s quite likely that he cherishes political ambitions. I understand that he’s a large owner of stock in a factory for making submarines and diving apparatus.”

“H—m!” remarked the captain. “That fact, too, may have something to do with his eagerness to have your services. In that event you would use his submarine and it would add prestige to his reputation as its maker. But as I understood you to say, when we were talking over this matter yesterday, the submarine the Governor plans to have you use is of a different type and has certain qualities covered by patents that no other undersea boat possesses.”

“Yes,” the professor assented. “One feature among many is that it has large windows of quartz capable of standing immense pressure, and so welded in, that the largest possible opportunity is afforded for studying the life of the sea under the surface.”

“For studying it, yes,” interposed Don. “For photographing it too, perhaps, but not for coming in contact with it. You can’t very well step out of a submarine and onto the ocean floor.”

“No,” admitted Professor Bruce, “for that we still have to use the diving bell. That, of course, we can use only where the water is comparatively shallow, for to go down too deep with no protection but the diver’s outfit would be fatal.”

“In what way?” asked Teddy.

“One would be crushed—crushed like an eggshell,” replied the professor. “At about the greatest depth known, say thirty thousand feet, the pressure on any object would be about six tons to the square inch.”

“Gee!” exclaimed Teddy. “One would be flattened out as though a steam roller had gone over him.”

“Exactly,” was the reply.

“How do the fishes stand the pressure?” asked Don.

“Most of them are not subjected to it,” explained his uncle. “There is very little life below a half mile from the surface. Certain specimens of fixed existences, such as sponges and mollusks, have been found at a depth of several miles, but they are the rarest of exceptions. In such cases they have special apparatus to counteract the excessive pressure.”

“I suppose we’ll see no end of queer specimens,” remarked Teddy.

“Where do you get that ‘we’ stuff?” asked Captain Sturdy.

“Chiefly because I want to see the expedition a success, and I don’t see how it’s going to be unless I go along,” replied Teddy with a grin.

“It hasn’t appeared to me in that light,” smiled the professor. “For that matter, I haven’t even decided definitely to go at all.”

“Oh, do go, Uncle Amos,” urged Don. “I’d hate to see you pass this thing up. It’s so different from anything else that we’ve ever undertaken. We’ve been on the ground and up in the air, but we’ve never yet gone under the sea.”

“There again comes in that ‘we’,” said the professor quizzically. “The cool assumption of this younger generation is simply amazing. But seriously,” he went on, “I don’t see just where you boys would come in on an expedition of this kind. On land explorations you’ve been of service with your rifles in emergencies. There won’t be any shooting under water.”

“Ought to be plenty of fishing, though,” urged Teddy.

“What fishing there is will be done chiefly with nets,” observed the professor, “and they’ll be pulled in by some of the huskies of the crew. No, I can’t figure where you boys would come in at all, except as excess baggage.”

Captain Sturdy laughed.

“Now,” the professor said thoughtfully, “if either of you youngsters knew how to paint——”

“Paint?” exclaimed Teddy, ready to grasp at any straw that presented itself. “Now you’re shouting. Paint is my middle name. You’ve come to the right shop. If you’d ever seen any of my work——”

“Amos isn’t referring to fence painting,” observed Captain Sturdy.

Teddy assumed an air of wounded dignity.

“Neither am I,” he asserted. “I’m talking about art—art with a big A. Raphael, Michelangelo stuff,” he added modestly.

There was a general laugh at the comparison.

“All nonsense aside, Teddy has a real gift for painting,” put in Don. “I’ve seen some of his sketches and they’re dandy. Same with some of his water colors. But just where does painting come in on this kind of an expedition?”

“It’s a very important part,” replied the professor. “The color of marine creatures is very helpful in determining their classification. Many of them, when they’re hauled up in nets, are glowing with all the colors of the rainbow. That often fades rapidly, and a painter is needed to put the colors in permanent form on paper or in sketch-books. If Teddy could really do this, it might solve the problem of taking him along. I’ll have to look at some of his work.”

“But where do I come in?” asked Don. “I’m not so gifted, artistically, as this red-headed genius——”

“Why couldn’t Don serve as your private secretary, Amos?” inquired Captain Sturdy. “You’ll be making an enormous number of notes and it will be much easier to dictate them than to write them out yourself. I think you told me that the Governor’s offer included provision for a private secretary.”

“It does,” agreed the professor. “All the provisions have been very liberal. Upon my word, I don’t know but what that will be the solution of the problem, Frank!”

“That would be dandy,” exclaimed Don. “Of course, I don’t know much about shorthand——”

“You wouldn’t need to,” interrupted the professor. “In writing anything pertaining to science, one has to go very slowly and carefully in order to be sure of the facts.”

“Besides,” added Captain Sturdy, “it’s essential that your secretary should be one in whom you can have the fullest confidence. You don’t want anyone to know what have been the results of your expedition until your writings have been fully protected by copyright.”

“Then everything’s for the best in the best of possible worlds,” chortled Don.

“Hurrah for the Bruce expedition!” cried Teddy.

“Steady, there, steady!” cautioned the professor with a smile. “The ‘Bruce expedition,’ as you call it, is still up in the air——”

“But it will soon be under the sea,” murmured the irrepressible Teddy.

“Even if it were definitely determined on, I don’t know whether the parents of you youngsters would be willing to have you go,” continued Professor Bruce, ignoring the interruption. “You’re both taking a good deal for granted.”

“Not I,” denied Teddy. “I’ve permission from my Dad in advance. When he saw how broken up I was because I couldn’t go with him on the Mongolian trip, he told me that if you and the captain were planning an expedition I could go along, providing you were willing to have me. He knows that whenever I’ve gone anywhere with you folks, I’ve always come back right side up.”

“I think Dad will feel the same way,” chimed in Don. “Of course, Mother and Ruth”—he hesitated a moment—“well, you know they’re always reluctant to have me go. But I’m sure they’ll come around. They always do.”

“Well, clear out now,” said the professor. “I want to talk the matter over with Frank. But remember that I haven’t promised anything.”

The boys left the room, highly elated. They were just in time to catch sight of the lanky figure of Jenny Jenks, the Sturdy’s maid of all work, vanishing down the stairs.