Victor Appleton

"Letter for you, Tom Swift." "Ah, thanks, Mr. Wilson. This is the first mail I've had this week. You've been neglecting me," and the young inventor took the missive which the Shopton postman handed to him over the gate, against which Tom was leaning one fine, warm Spring day. "Well, I get around as often as I can, Tom. You're not home a great deal, you know. When you're not off in your sky racer seeing how much you can beat the birds, you're either hunting elephants in Africa, or diving down under the ocean, or out in a diamond mine, or some such out-of-the-way place as that. No wonder you don't get many letters. But that one looks as if it had come quite a distance.

"Where are you going, Tom?" asked Mr. Barton Swift of his son as the young man was slowly pushing his motor-cycle out of the yard toward the country road. "You look as though you had some object in view." "So I have, dad. I'm going over to Lanton." "To Lanton? What for?" "I want to have a look at that motor-boat." "Which boat is that, Tom? I don't recall your speaking about a boat over at Lanton. What do you want to look at it for?" "It's the motor-boat those fellows had who tried to get away with your turbine model invention, dad. The one they used at the old General Harkness mansion, in the woods near the lake, and the same boat that fellow used when he got away from me the day I was chasing him here." "Oh, yes, I remember now.

"Now, see here, Mr. Swift, you may think it all a sort of dream, and imagine that I don't know what I'm talking about; but I do If you'll consent to finance this expedition to the extent of, say, ten thousand dollars, I'll practically guarantee to give you back five times that sum "I don't know, Alec, I don't know," slowly responded the aged inventor. "I've heard those stories before, and in my experience nothing ever came of them. Buried treasure, and lost vessels filled with gold, are all well and good, but hunting for an opal mine on some little-heard-of island goes them one better." "Then you don't feel like backing me up in this matter, Mr. Swift?" "No, Alec, I can't say I do. Why, just stop and think for a minute. You're asking me to put ten thousand dollars into a company, to fit out an expedition to go to this island-somewhere down near Panama, you say it is-and try to locate the lost mine from which, some centuries ago, opals and other precious stones came. It doesn't seem reasonable.

"Father," exclaimed Tom Swift, looking up from a paper he was reading, "I think I can win that prize " "What prize is that?" inquired the aged inventor, gazing away from a drawing of a complicated machine, and pausing in his task of making some intricate calculations. "You don't mean to say, Tom, that you're going to have a try for a government prize for a submarine, after all." "No," not a submarine prize, dad," and the youth laughed. "Though our Advance would take the prize away from almost any other under-water boat, I imagine. No, it's another prize I'm thinking about." "What do you mean?" "Well, I see by this paper that the Touring Club of America has offered three thousand dollars for the speediest electric car. The tests are to come off this fall, on a new and specially built track on Long Island, and it's to be an endurance contest for twenty-four hours, or a race for distance, they haven't yet decided. But I'm going to have a try for it, dad, and, besides winning the prize, I think I'll take Andy Foger down a peg. "What's Andy been doing now?" "Oh, nothing more than usual. He's always mean, and looking for a chance to make trouble for me, but I didn't refer to anything special He has a new auto, you know, and he boasts that it's the fastest one in this country. I'll show him that it isn't, for I'm going to win this prize with the speediest car on the road."

"Have you anything special to do to-night, Ned?" asked Tom Swift, the well-known inventor, as he paused in front of his chum's window, in the Shopton National Bank. "No, nothing in particular," replied the bank clerk, as he stacked up some bundles of bills. "Why do you ask?" "I wanted you to come over to the house for a while." "Going to have a surprise party, or something like that?" "No, only I've got something I'd like to show you." "A new invention?" "Well, not exactly new. You've seen it before, but not since I've improved it. I'm speaking of my new electric rifle. I've got it ready to try, now, and I'd like to see what you think of it. There's a rifle range over at the house, and we can practice some shooting, if you haven't anything else to do." "I haven't, and I'll be glad to come. What are you doing in the bank, anyhow; putting away more of your wealth, Tom?" "Yes, I just made a little deposit. It's some money I got from the government for the patents on my sky racer, and I'm salting it down here until Dad and I can think of a better investment."

"Are you all ready, Tom?" "All ready, Mr. Sharp," replied a young man, who was stationed near some complicated apparatus, while the questioner, a dark man, with a nervous manner, leaned over a large tank. "I'm going to turn on the gas now," went on the man. "Look out for yourself. I'm not sure what may happen." "Neither am I, but I'm ready for it. If it does explode it can't do much damage." "Oh, I hope it doesn't explode. We've had so much trouble with the airship, I trust nothing goes wrong now."

"Oh Tom, is it really safe?" A young lady-an exceedingly pretty young lady, she could be called-stood with one small, gloved hand on the outstretched wing of an aeroplane, and looked up at a young man, attired in a leather, fur-lined suit, who sat in the cockpit of the machine just above her. "Safe, Mary?" repeated the pilot, as he reached in under the hood of the craft to make sure about one of the controls. "Why, you ought to know by this time that I wouldn't go up if it wasn't safe " "Oh, yes, I know, Tom. It may be all right for you, but I've never been up in this kind of airship before, and I want to know if it's safe for me." The young man leaned over the edge of the padded cockpit, and clasped in his rather grimy hand the neatly gloved one of the young lady. And though the glove was new, and fitted the hand perfectly, there was no attempt to withdraw it. Instead, the young lady seemed to be very glad indeed that her hand was in such safe keeping.

Tom Swift, seated in his laboratory engaged in trying to solve a puzzling question that had arisen over one of his inventions, was startled by a loud knock on the door. So emphatic, in fact, was the summons that the door trembled, and Tom started to his feet in some alarm. "Hello there " he cried. "Don't break the door, Koku " and then he laughed. "No one but my giant would knock like that," he said to himself. "He never does seem able to do things gently. But I wonder why he is knocking. I told him to get the engine out of the airship, and Eradicate said he'd be around to answer the telephone and bell. I wonder if anything has happened? Tom shoved back his chair, pushed aside the mass of papers over which he had been puzzling, and strode to the door. Flinging it open he confronted a veritable giant of a man, nearly eight feet tall, and big in proportion.

Ceasing his restless walk up and down the room, Tom Swift strode to the window and gazed across the field toward the many buildings, where machines were turning out the products evolved from the brains of his father and himself. There was a worried look on the face of the young inventor, and he seemed preoccupied, as though thinking of something far removed from whatever it was his eyes gazed upon. "Well, I'll do it " suddenly exclaimed Tom. "I don't want to, but I will. It's in the line of 'doing my bit, ' I suppose; but I'd rather it was something else. I wonder-" "Ha Up to your old tricks, I see, Tom " exclaimed a voice, in which energy and friendliness mingled pleasingly. "Up to your old tricks " "Oh, hello, Mr. Damon " cried Tom, turning to shake hands with an elderly gentleman-that is, elderly in appearance but not in action, for he crossed the room with the springing step of a lad, and there was the enthusiasm of youth on his face. "What do you mean-my old tricks?"

"Some one to see you, Mr. Tom." It was Koku, or August, as he was sometimes called, the new giant servant of Tom Swift, who made this announcement to the young inventor. "Who is it, Koku?" inquired Tom, looking up from his work-bench in the machine shop, where he was busy over a part of the motor for his new noiseless airship. "Any one I know? Is it the 'Blessing Man'" for so Koku had come to call Mr. Damon, an eccentric friend of Tom's. "No, not him. A strange man. I never see before. He say he got quick business.

Tom Swift closed the book of adventures he had been reading, tossed it on the table, and got up. Then he yawned. "What's the matter?" asked his chum, Ned Newton, who was deep in another volume. "Oh, I thought this was going to be something exciting," replied Tom, motioning toward the book he had discarded. "But say the make- believe adventures that fellow had, weren't anything compared to those we went through in the city of gold, or while rescuing the exiles of Siberia." "Well," remarked Ned, "they would have to be pretty classy adventures to lay over those you and I have had lately. But where are you going?" he continued, for Tom had taken his cap and started for the door. "I thought I'd go out and take a little run in the aeroplane. Want to come along? It's more fun than sitting in the house reading about exciting things that never have happened.

"Well, Massa Tom, am yo' gwine out in yo' flyin' machine ag'in to- day?" "Yes, Rad, I think I will take a little flight. Perhaps I'll go over to Waterford, and call on Mr. Damon. I haven't seen very much of him, since we got back from our hunt after the diamond-makers." "Take a run clear ober t' Waterfield; eh, Massa Tom?" "Yes, Rad. Now, if you'll help me, I'll get out the Butterfly, and see what trim she's in for a speedy flight." Tom Swift, the young inventor, aided by Eradicate Sampson, the colored helper of the Swift household, walked over toward a small shed. A few minutes later the two had rolled into view, on its three bicycle wheels, a trim little monoplane-one of the speediest craft of the air that had ever skimmed along beneath the clouds. It was built to carry two, and had a very powerful motor.

"An electric locomotive that can make two miles a minute over a properly ballasted roadbed might not be an impossibility," said Mr. Barton Swift ruminatively. "It is one of those things that are coming," and he flashed his son, Tom Swift, a knowing smile. It had been a topic of conversation between them before the visitor from the West had been seated before the library fire and had sampled one of the elder Swift's good cigars. "It is not only a future possibility," said the latter gentleman, shrugging his shoulders. "As far as the Hendrickton and Pas Alos Railroad Company goes, a two mile a minute gait-not alone on a level track but through the Pas Alos Range-is an immediate necessity. It's got to be done now, or our stock will be selling on the curb for about two cents a share." "You do not mean just that, do you, Mr. Bartholomew?" asked Tom Swift earnestly, and staring at the big-little man before the fire.

"Is this Tom Swift, the inventor of several airships?" The man who had rung the bell glanced at the youth who answered his summons. "Yes, I'm Tom Swift," was the reply. "Did you wish to see me?" "I do. I'm Mr. James Gunmore, secretary of the Eagle Park Aviation Association. I had some correspondence with you about a prize contest we are going to hold. I believe-" "Oh, yes, I remember now," and the young inventor smiled pleasantly as he opened wider the door of his home. "Won't you come in? My father will be glad to see you. He is as much interested in airships as I am." And Tom led the way to the library, where the secretary of the aviation society was soon seated in a big, comfortable leather chair.

In this hardbound edition of novel 23 in this series, Tom must travel to Mars to find out just why the small moon, Phobos, has suddenly begun coming close to the surface. In fact it is coming down to lower and lower orbits that could, within months, endanger the colonists on the planet below. He first tries to use brute force and to push it back into higher orbit, but nearly loses several spacecraft in the attempt. So, he now is faced with finding out the why of it all before he can find a solution that won't mean simply destroying the moon. That, he fears, might backfire and do damage to the colony and the planet. He tries to find some answers with the aid of his Space Friends, but they seem to have disappeared from his life. Without their help he mounts an expedition of Phobos and finds about the last thing he might think of. Now it is a race against time to see if he can rectify the situation and re-place Phobos in its correct orbit.

In the 20th adventure of this new series, Tom Swift finds a pleasant day test sailing a new yacht is turning into an attack from the sky. Out of nowhere a lightning bolt strikes his boat and sucks all power from everywhere. Not a freak incident, it seems to be more of a warning of things to come when a large power generating station along the East Coast is attacked next, with the same loss of electricity as if it had been siphoned back into the sky. This time, there is a great deal of damage and a near death. More and more power stations are targeted and now Tom must try to find out several vital things: Who is attacking? Why are they invisible and how do they manage that? What is their purpose in zig-zagging up and down the country hitting station after station? Not only is he broadsided by these attack, he also finds out there is another Tom Swift out there; or rather a Tommy Swift. Together they work to uncover the evil attackers Bud Barclay has dubbed the Electricity Vampires.

In the twenty-first novel in this new series, Tom has defeated the Electricity Vampires and now wants something a bit less diabolical to take up his time. A new X-Prize is announced that intrigues him: fly a solar-powered aircraft, non-stop, around the globe in just 36 hours! That sort of speed will require an electrical powered jet, and that will burn up a lot of electricity. So, how can he manage to make what he needs by day... and still have enough to run at full speed at night? Might his recently discovered cousin in England, Thomasina Swift, be of some assistance? After all, she and her partner, Betty, have come up with an incredible solar cloth! Just as long as nothing ""exotic"" is used like one of Tom's Power Pods. Complicating things is a mysterious woman, and a deadly opponent, seemingly out to keep Tom from winning or perhaps from ever getting back home alive.

Adventure 22 in this new series sees Tom and Bud and their wives vacationing in Barbados, only to discover a terrible food shortage is about to befall several Caribbean islands. Tom's wife wants him to help, but it is only once a relatively new British Ministry comes to Swift Enterprises with money and an official request that he finds he may have an idea or two.The major obstacle is how do you build farm land on a totally used island where nothing more exists without ruining the ecology?When he settles on a unique growing environment, there are many things to overcome, not the least of which are rampant rumors on many of the islands saying that the Swifts are out to capture and steal their land. One man is so angry he shoots Tom during a public event.But, not a lot can get the inventor down except for a returning enemy out to destroy him and the humanitarian project. Obstacle after obstacle are overcome as he works to finish his SeaSpace HydroFarm.