Chapter VIII. Through the Roof - Page 2

fairly howling with delight.

"Ha! Guess yo' won't do no mo' spadin' in' Massa Tom's garden right away, big man!" taunted Eradicate.

"Be quiet, Rad!" ordered Tom, as he reached up and pulled out the switch, thus shutting off the current. "This isn't anything to laugh at."

"But he done look so funny, Massa Tom!" pleaded the colored man. "He done squirm laik--"

But Eradicate did not finish what he intended to say. Once free from the powerful current, the giant looked at his numb hands, and then, seeming to think that Eradicate was the cause of it all, he sprang at the colored man with a yell. But Eradicate did not stay to see what would happen. With a howl of terror, he raced out of the door, and, old and rheumatic as he was, he managed to gain the stable of his mule, Boomerang, over which he had his humble but comfortable quarters.

"Well, I guess he's safe for a while!" laughed Tom, as he saw the giant turn away, shaking his fist at the closed door, for Koku, big as he was, stood in mortal terror of the mule's heels.

Tom locked the door of the electrical shop and Went back to his interrupted problem. From Jackson he learned that Koku and Eradicate had merely happened to stroll into the forbidden place, which had been left open by accident. There, it appeared, Koku had handled some of the machinery, ending by switching on the current of the machine the handles of which he later unsuspectingly picked up. Then he received a shock he long remembered, and for many days he believed Eradicate had been responsible for it, and there was more than the usual hostile feeling between the two. But Eradicate was innocent of that trick, at all events.

"Though," said Tom, telling his father about it later, "Rad would have turned on the current if he had known he could make trouble for Koku by it. I never saw their like for having disagreements!"

"Yes, but they are both devoted to you, Tom," said the aged inventor. "But what is this you hinted at--a silent motor you called it, I believe? Are you really serious in trying to invent one?"

"Yes, Dad, I am. I think there's a big field for an aeroplane that could travel along over the enemy's lines--particularly at night--and not be heard from below. Think of the scout work that could be done.

"Well, yes, it could be done if you could get a silent motor, or propellers that made no noise, Tom. But I don't believe it can be done."

"Well, maybe not, Dad. But I'm going to try!" and Tom, after a further talk with his father, began work in earnest on the big problem. That it was a big one Tom was not disposed to deny, and that it would be a valuable invention even his somewhat skeptical father admitted.

"How are you going to start, Tom?" asked Mr. Swift, several days