Chapter IX. After a Spy - Page 2

alive in the shop. All had escaped most fortunately, and they realized this.

"Well," queried Ned, as Tom gave orders to have the damaged machine removed and the roof repaired, "does this end the wonderful silent motor, Tom?"

"End it! What do you mean--"

"I mean are you going to experiment any further?"

"Why, of course! Just because I've had one failure doesn't mean that I'm going to give up. Especially when I know what the matter was--not leaving any vent for the escaping gases. Why this isn't anything. When I was perfecting my giant cannon I was nearly blown up more than once, and you remember how we got stuck in the submarine."

"I should say I did!" exclaimed Ned with a shudder. "I don't want any more of that. But as between being blown through a roof and held at the bottom of the sea, I don't know that there's much choice."

"Well, perhaps not," agreed Tom. "But as for ending my experiments, I wouldn't dream of such a thing! Why, I've only just begun! I'll have a silent motor yet!"

"And a non-explosive one, I hope," added Mr. Damon dryly. "Bless my shoe buttons, Tom, but if my wife knew what danger I'd been in she'd never let me come over to see you any more."

"Well, the next time I invite you to a test I'll be more careful," promised the young inventor.

"There isn't going to be any next time as far as I'm concerned!" laughed Ned. "I think it's safer to sell Liberty Bonds."

And, though they joked about it, they all realized the narrow escape they had had. As for Eradicate, once he knew he had not been the one who caused the damage, he felt rather proud of the part he had taken in the mishap, and for many days he boasted about it to Koku.

True to his determination, Tom Swift did not give up his experimental work on the silent motor. The machine that had been blown through the roof was useless now, and it was sent to the scrap heap, after as much of it as possible had been salvaged. Then Tom got another piece of apparatus out of his store room and began all over again.

He worked along the same lines as at first--providing a chamber for the escaping gases of the exhaust to expend their noise and energy in, at the same time laboring to cut down the concussion of the explosions in the cylinder without reducing their force any. And that it was no easy problem to do either of these, Tom had to admit as he progressed. All previous types of mufflers or silencers had to be discarded and a new one evolved.

"Jackson, I need some one to help me," said Tom to his chief mechanician one day. "Haven't you a good man who is used to experimental work that you can let me take from the works?"

"Why, yes," was the answer. "Let me see.