Tom Swift and His Undersea Search | Page 5

even in the last hundred years, it amazes
one. But still, all the gold and silver was hidden in the earth before it
was dug out, and now it's only gone back where it came from, in a way.
We got along before men dug it out and coined it into money, and I
guess we'll get along when it's under water. No use worrying over the
ocean treasures, as far as I'm concerned."
"You're a hopeless proposition!" laughed Ned. "You'd never make a
banker, or a Napoleon of finance."
"That's why my father and I got you to look after our financial affairs,"
and Tom smiled. "You're just the one--with your interest-bearing
mind--to keep us off the shoals of business trouble."
"Yes, I suppose I can do that, while you and your father go on
inventing giant cannons, great searchlights, submarines, and airships,"
conceded Ned. "But this, to me, did look like an easy way of making
money."
"How's that, Ned?" asked Tom, a new note coming into his voice.
"Were you thinking of going to Japan and taking a hand in the undersea
search?"
"No. But stock in this company is being sold, and shareholders stand to
win big returns--if the wrecks are come upon."
"That's just it!" exclaimed Tom. "If they find the wrecks! And let me
tell you, Ned, that there's a mighty big 'if' in it all. Do you realize how
hard it is to find anything on the ocean, to say nothing of something
under it?"
"I hadn't thought of it."
"Well, you'd better think of it. You know on the ocean sailors have to
locate a certain imaginary position by calculation, using the sun and
stars as guides. Of course, they have navigation down pretty fine, and a
good pilot can get to a place on the surface of the ocean and meet
another craft there almost as well as you and I can make an

appointment to meet at Main and Broad streets at a certain hour.
"But lots of times there are errors in calculations or a storm comes up
hiding the sun and stars, and, instead of a captain getting to where he
wants to, he's anywhere from one to a hundred miles out. Now the
location of Broad and Main Streets doesn't change even in a storm.
"And I'm not saying that a location on an ocean changes. I'm only
saying that the least disturbance or error in calculation makes it almost
impossible to find the exact spot. And if it's that hard on the surface,
where you can see what you're doing, how much harder is it in regard
to something on the bottom of the sea? So don't take any stock in these
ocean treasure recovering companies. They may not be fakes, but
they're mighty uncertain."
"Oh, I don't know that I was really going to buy any stock in this
Japanese concern, Tom. I only thought it would be interesting to think
about. And perhaps you might sell them a submarine or some of your
diving apparatus."
"Nothing doing, Ned. We've got other plans, my father and I. There's
that new tractor for use in the big wheat-growing belt, to say nothing
of--"
Tom's remarks were interrupted by voices outside his office door. One
voice, in particular, rose above the others. It said:
"No can go in! The Master he am busily! No can go in!"
"Nonsense, Koku!" exclaimed a man, and at the sound of his voice
Tom and Ned smiled. "Nonsense! Of course I can go in! Why, bless my
watch fob, I must go in! I've got the greatest proposition to lay before
Tom Swift that he ever heard of! There's at least a million in it! Let me
pass, Koku!"
"Mr. Damon!" murmured Tom Swift. "I wonder what he has on his
mind now

As he spoke the door opened rather violently and a short, stout man,
evidently much excited, fairly burst into the room, followed, more
sedately, by a stranger.
CHAPTER II
A STRANGE OFFER

"Hello, Tom Swift! Hello, Ned! Glad to see you both! Busy, as usual,
I'll wager. Bless my check book! I never saw you when you weren't
busy at some scheme or other, Tom, my boy. But I won't take up much
of your time. Tom Swift, let me introduce my friend, Mr. Dixwell
Hardley. Mr. Hardley, shake hands with Tom Swift, one of the
youngest, and yet one of the greatest, inventors in the world! I've told
you a little about him, but it would take me all day to tell you what he
really has done and--"
"Hold on, Mr. Damon!" laughed Tom, as he shook hands with the man
whom Mr. Damon had named Dixwell Hardley. "Hold on, if you please.
There's a limit to