Tom Swift Among the Diamond Makers | Page 5

on the glass
door of the jewelry shop. With a start, he looked up, to see staring in on
him the face of the man who had been there before--the man of whom
the jeweler was even then in chase.
"WhyÄwhyÄÄ" stammered Tom.
The man knocked again.
"Tom--Tom Swift!" he called. "Don't you know me?"
"Know you--you?" repeated the lad.
"Yes Ä don't you remember Earthquake Island--how we were nearly
killed there--don't you remember Mr. Jenks?"
"Mr. Jenks?"

Tom was so startled that he could only repeat words after the strange
man, who was talking to him from outside the glass door.
"Yes, Mr. Jenks," was the reply. "Mr. Barcoe Jenks, who makes
diamonds. I saw you in the store about to buy a diamond--I wanted to
tell you not to--I'll give you a better diamond than you can buy--I just
arrived in this place--I must have a private talk with you--Come
out--I'll share a wonderful secret with you."
A flood of memory came to Tom. He did recall the very strange man
who walked around Earthquake Island--where Tom and some friends
had been marooned recently--walked about with a pocketful of what he
said were diamonds. Now Barcoe Jenks was here.
"I must see you privately, Tom Swift," went on Mr. Jenks, as he once
more tapped on the glass. "Don't waste money buying diamonds, when
you and I can make better ones. Where can I have a talk with you? I--"
Mr. Jenks suddenly looked down the dimly- lighted street. "They're
coming back!" he cried. "I don't want to be seen. I'll call at your house
later to-night--be on the watch for me--until then--good-by!"
He waved his hand, and was gone in an instant. Tom stood staring at
the glass door. He hardly knew whether to believe it or not--perhaps it
was all a dream.
He pinched himself to make sure that he was awake. Very substantial
flesh met his thumb and finger, and he felt the pain.
"I'm awake all right," he murmured. "But Barcoe Jenks here--and still
talking that nonsense about his manufactured diamonds. I think he must
be crazy. I wonder--"
Once more the lad's musing was interrupted. He heard a murmur of
excited voices outside the store, on the street. Then the door of the
jewelry shop was tried. Mr. Track's face was pressed against the glass.
"Open the door! Let me in, Tom!" he called. "I've caught the thief," and
as the lad unlocked the portal he saw that the jeweler held by the arm a

ragged lad. "Ah; you scoundrel! I've caught you!" cried the diamond
merchant, shaking the small chap, while Tom looked on, more
mystified than ever.
CHAPTER II
- A MIDNIGHT VISIT
While Mr. Track, the jeweler, and several citizens, attracted by the
chase after the supposed thief, are crowded into the store, anxious to
hear explanations of the strange affair, I will take the opportunity to tell
you something of Tom Swift, the lad who is to figure in this story.
Many of you have already made his acquaintance, when he has been
speeding about in his airship or fast electric runabout, and to others we
will state that our hero first made his bow to the public in the book
called "Tom Swift and His Motor-Cycle," the initial volume of this
series.
In that story there was related how Tom made the acquaintance of an
odd individual, named Mr. Wakefield Damon, who was continually
blessing himself, some part of his anatomy, or his possessions. Mr.
Damon was riding a motor-cycle, and it started to climb a tree, to his
pain and fright. Afterward Tom purchased the machine, and had many
adventures on it, including a chase after a gang of men who had stolen
a valuable patent model belonging to Mr. Swift.
Mr. Swift, and his son were both inventors. They lived together in a
fine house in the suburbs of Shopton, New York, and with them dwelt
Mrs. Baggert, the housekeeper (for Tom's mother was dead), and also
Garret Jackson, an expert engineer, who aided the young inventor and
his father in perfecting many machines.
There was also another semi-member of the household, to wit,
Eradicate Sampson, an eccentric colored man, who owned a mule
called Boomerang. Eradicate did odd jobs around the place, and the
mule assisted his owner--that is when the mule felt like it.

In the second volume of the series, entitled "Tom Swift and His
Motor-Boat," there was related the incidents following a pursuit after a
gang of unprincipled men, who sought to get Possession of some of Mr.
Swift's patents, and it was while in this boat that Tom, his father, and a
friend, Ned Newton, rescued from Lake Carlopa a Mr. John Sharp, who
fell from his burning balloon. Mr. Sharp was a skilled