The Boy Inventors Radio Telephone | Page 8

valued specimen and admired it.
They soon reached his home, a pretty cottage on the outskirts of
Creston, a small town with elm-shaded streets. The professor invited
the boys to accompany him into the house. They were met in the
passage by a shrill-voiced woman who looked like the professor in
petticoats.
"My sister, Miss Melissa," said the professor. "My dear, these are----"
But he got no further in his introduction. Miss Melissa's hands went up
in the air and her voice rose in a shrill shriek as she saw her brother's
condition.
"Lan's sakes, Jerushah, where have you been?" she exclaimed.
"My dear, I must apologize for my condition," said the professor mildly.
"You see I----"

"You're dripping a puddle on my carpets. You're wringing wet
through!" shrilled Miss Melissa.
"Yes, you see, my dear, I've been down a well," explained the man of
science calmly.
"Do tell! Down a well, Jerushah? At your time of life!"
"You see I was after specimens, my dear," went on the professor.
"Specimens!" exclaimed Miss Melissa. "The whole house is full of old
rocks now, Jerushah, an' you have ter go down a well to get more."
"These are very valuable, my dear," said the professor, floundering
helplessly.
"Oh, don't tell me. A passel of old rocks. I'm going to get you a hot
mustard footbath and some herb tea right away," and without another
word, except something about "death of cold, passel of boys," the good
lady flounced off.
"She's like that sometimes, but she means well, Melissa does,"
explained the professor, with a rather sheepish look as he stood in the
midst of a puddle that was rapidly converting him into an isolated
island in the midst of Miss Melissa's immaculate hall carpet. Suddenly,
with one of his impulsive movements, he darted off into a room
opening off the hall and came back with a dollar bill he had unearthed
from a desk. He handed it to Jack, and then, raising his finger to his lips,
he said:
"Don't let Melissa see it. She's the best of women, is Melissa, but
peculiar about some things--er--very peculiar."
"Je-ru-shah!" came Miss Melissa's voice.
"Yes, my dear, coming," said the professor, and shouldering his bag of
specimens he shook hands with the boys and hastened off to answer his
sister's dictatorial call.

"I guess we'd better be going," said Jack, with a smile that he could not
repress.
The others agreed, and they were soon speeding back to High Towers,
as the estate of Jack's father, also a noted inventor, was called, with
plenty to talk about as a result of the events of the day.
CHAPTER V.
CHESTER CHADWICK--INVENTOR.
As readers of the preceding volumes of this series, know, Jack
Chadwick and Tom Jesson, his cousin, had won the titles of Boy
Inventors through their ingenuity and mechanical genius. Jack's father,
Chester Chadwick, was an inventor of note, and unlike the majority of
inventors, he had turned his devices to such good account that he had
accumulated a substantial fortune and was able to maintain a fine estate,
already referred to as High Towers where, with splendidly equipped
workshops and a miniature lake, he could experiment and work out his
ideas.
In the first book of this series it was related how Tom Jesson, Jack's
cousin, came to make his home at High Towers. Tom's father, an
explorer of international fame, had departed on an expedition to
Yucatan and had not been heard from since that time. This volume,
which was called the Boy Inventors' Wireless Triumph, told of the
boys' exploits in the radio-telegraphic field and the uses to which they
were able to turn them. In a flying machine, the invention of Mr.
Chadwick, they discovered Tom's father, under remarkable
circumstances, a prisoner of a tribe of savages, and also found a fortune
in precious stones.
In the succeeding story of their adventures, the boys helped an inventor
in trouble. The Boy Inventors' Vanishing Gun, as this volume was
entitled, set forth in a graphic way the triumph of the boys over the
machinations of a gang of rascals intent on stealing the plans of the
wonderful implement of warfare which they had helped bring to
successful completion.

We next encountered the lads in the Boy Inventors' Diving Torpedo
Boat. Here they were placed in a new environment on the surface and
in the depths of the ocean. The way in which the wonderful diving craft
aided Uncle Sam in a crisis with enemies of the United States was told,
and their ingenuity and bravery played no small part in the affair.
The Boy Inventors' Flying Ship was devoted to a detailed narrative of
the boys' long and unexpected cruise to the unexplored regions of the
Upper Amazon. The boys were shipwrecked and