THE BOY INVENTORS" RADIO TELEPHONE.
by RICHARD BONNER.
CHAPTER I.
THE POWER OF THE AIR.
"That"s it, Jack. Let her out!"
"Suffering speed laws of Squantum, but she can travel!" exclaimed d.i.c.k Donovan, redheaded and voluble.
"I tell you, electricity is the thing. Beats gasoline a million ways," chimed in Tom Jesson. Tom sat beside his cousin, Jack Chadwick, on the driver"s seat of a curious-looking automobile which was whizzing down the smooth, broad, green-bordered road that led to Nestorville, the small town outside Boston where the Boy Inventors made their home.
The car that Jack Chadwick was driving differed in a dozen respects from an ordinary automobile. There was no engine hood in front. Instead of a bonnet the car, which was low slung, long and painted black, had a sharp prow of triangular shape. Its body, in fact, might be roughly compared to the form of a double-ended whaleboat.
As it sped along outside the city limits, and immune from hampering speed laws, the car emitted no sound.
It moved silently, without the usual sharp staccato rattle of the exhaust. Behind it there was no evil-smelling trail of gasoline and oil smoke. The car glided as silently as a summer breeze on its wire-wheels, like those of a bicycle enlarged.
"I"ll get a great story out of this," declared d.i.c.k Donovan, who, as readers of other volumes of this series know, was a reporter on a Boston paper. "That is, if you"ll let me write it," he added, leaning forward over the front seat from the tonneau as he spoke.
"How about it, Jack?" asked Tom with an amused smile. "Shall we let d.i.c.k here get famous at our expense again?"
"I don"t see why not," said Jack. "Everything about the Electric Monarch is patented. The new reciprocating device, and the self-feeding storage batteries are fully covered. If d.i.c.k wants to write a romance about it he can, provided he leaves our pictures out."
"Oh, I"ll do that," d.i.c.k readily promised. "Are you making top speed now, Jack?"
"Nowhere near; I wouldn"t dare to. I believe that the Monarch is capable of ninety miles an hour. I wish we had a place like Ormond Beach to try her out on."
"You can count me out on that," chuckled d.i.c.k. "This is fast enough for me."
The boys were trying out their latest invention, an electric car capable of making the speed of a gasoline-driven vehicle, and one which could be operated at a minimum of cost, almost a nominal expense, as compared with the high price of a vehicle run by an explosive engine.
It was the trial trip of the Electric Monarch, as they had decided to call it, and so far the performances of the machine had exceeded, instead of fallen below, their expectations. d.i.c.k, who had been invited to the "tryout," was full of questions as they sped silently, and with an absolute lack of vibration, along the road.
"How do you generate your electricity?" he asked eagerly.
"By a device geared to the rear axle," answered Tom. "It runs a sort of dynamo, though it would be difficult for you to understand it if I went into details. It"s something like the ordinary generator and turns a constant stream of "juice" into the storage batteries that, in turn, feed the engines."
"Yes, that"s all plain enough," said the inquisitive d.i.c.k, "but how do you get your power for starting?"
"If there is not enough juice in the storage batteries for the purpose we resort to compressed air," was the reply from Tom, for Jack, with keen eyes on the unrolling ribbon of road, was too busy to have his attention distracted.
"And that?" d.i.c.k paused interrogatively.
"Is pumped into a pressure tank as we go along. See that gauge?" he pointed to one on the dashboard of the car in front of the driver"s seat.
d.i.c.k nodded.
"Well, that"s a pressure gauge. You see, we have sixty pounds of air in the tank now. That can generate enough electricity to start the car going. After that the process is automatic."
"Yes, you explained that. Suppose the tank should, through an accident, be empty, and you wanted to start?"
"We"ve provided for that"
"I expected so. Wabbling wheels of Wisconsin, you fellows are certainly wonders."
"Nothing very wonderful about it," disclaimed Tom. "Well, if we find the tank is empty we have a powerful, double-acting hand pump by which, without much effort, we can get up any pressure we need."
"And then you turn a valve?"
"Exactly, and the air-motor turns over the dynamo which starts generating electricity right away."
"Then, except for the first cost of the car, the expense of operating it is comparatively nothing?" asked d.i.c.k.
"Yes, you might say we get our power out of the air, and that"s free--so far."
"And there"s no limit, then, to what you can do or where you can go with the Electric Monarch?"
"None; that is, so long as the machinery holds out. We are independent of fuel and the lubricating system is so devised that the oiling is automatic and requires attending to only once a month. We could easily carry a year"s supply of lubricant."
"Tall timbers of Taunton!" burst out d.i.c.k enthusiastically. "You"ve solved the problem of the poor man"s car. All the owner of an Electric Monarch has to do is to pump a little pump-handle or press a little b.u.t.ton and he"s off without it costing him a cent. My story will sure make a big sensation!"
"Well, you want to tone down that part about its not costing a cent," chimed in Jack as they coasted down a hill. "The expense of the motor and the self-lubricating bearings and so on is pretty steep. But we hope in time to be able to cheapen the whole car."
They were shooting swiftly down the hill as he spoke. The next moment he looked ahead again as they shot round a curve. As they did so his hand sought a b.u.t.ton and an ear-splitting screech arose from a powerful siren.
In the center of the road, quite oblivious to the oncoming automobile, was an odd figure, that of a small man in a rusty, baggy suit of black.
He had a hammer in his hand and was. .h.i.tting some object in the roadway over which he was bending with a concentrated interest that made him quite unconscious of the onrushing car.
"Hi! Get out of the way!" yelled the boys.
But the man did not look up. Instead, he kept tapping away with his hammer at whatever it was that absorbed his attention so intently.
CHAPTER II.
AN ENCOUNTER WITH A "CHARACTER."
Jack jammed down the emergency brakes, which were pneumatic and operated from the pressure tank, with a suddenness that sent d.i.c.k Donovan almost catapulting out of the tonneau.
"Jumping jiggers of Joppa!" he shouted, for he had not yet seen the obstacle in the road, "what"s happened? Are we bust up?"
"No, but if I hadn"t stopped when I did we"d have bust someone else up," declared Jack. "Look there!"
"Can you beat it?" exclaimed Tom.
As the brakes brought the car to a stop within a foot of his stout, rotund figure, the little man in the center of the road looked up with a sort of mild surprise through a pair of astonishingly thick-lensed eyegla.s.ses secured to his ears by a thick, black ribbon. He wore a broad-brimmed black hat and wrinkled, baggy clothes of bar-cloth, and a huge pair of square-toed boots that looked as if their tips had been chopped off with an ax.
Over his shoulder was slung a canvas bag which appeared to be heavy and bulged as if several irregularly shaped, solid substances were inside of it. The spot where this odd encounter took place was some distance from any town, but a bicycle leaning against a tree at the roadside showed how the little man had got there.
"Say, would you mind letting us get by?" asked Jack.
The little man raised a hand protestingly.
"I"ll be delighted to in just a moment," he said, "but just now it"s impossible. You see, I"ve just discovered a vein of what I believe to be Laurentian granite running across the road. I am trying to trace it and--what"s that? Good gracious! Back up your machine, please. I believe it runs under your wheel. I must make sure."
Jack obligingly threw in the reverse to humor the little man, who darted forward and began sc.r.a.ping up the dust in the road with his hands as if he had been a dog scratching out a rabbit hole. He began chipping away eagerly with his hammer at some rock that cropped up out of the road.
He broke off a piece with his hammer, which was an oddly shaped tool, and drawing out a big magnifying gla.s.s scanned the chip intently. He appeared to have forgotten all about the waiting boys. But now he seemed to remember them. He looked up, beaming.
"A magnificent specimen. One of the finest I have ever seen. Most remarkable!"
And with that he popped the bit of stone into his bag, which the boys now saw was filled with similar objects.
"Maybe he"ll let us get by now," remarked Tom, but a sudden exclamation from d.i.c.k Donovan cut him short.
"Why, hullo, professor," he said, "out collecting specimens?"
The little man peered at him sharply. And then broke into a smile of recognition.
"Why, it"s d.i.c.k Donovan!" he beamed, hastening up to the car, "the young journalist who wrote an article about my specimens once and woefully mixed them up. However, to an unscientific mind----"
"They are all just rocks," finished d.i.c.k with a grin.
"I have had unusual success to-day," said the professor, who appeared not to have heard the remark. "I must have at least fifty pounds of specimens on my back at this minute."
He broke off suddenly. The next moment he darted off to the side of the road and chipped off a fragment of rock from a bank that overhung it.
"This is lucky, indeed," he exclaimed, holding it up to the light so that some specks in the gray stone sparkled. "An extremely rare specimen of mica that I had no idea existed in this part of New England."
The odd little man opened his bag and introduced his latest acquisition into it While he was doing this d.i.c.k had been explaining to the boys: "He"s a queer character. Professor Jerushah Jenks. They say he"s a great authority on mineralogy and so on. I interviewed him once. He"s always out collecting."
"Does he always carry a quarry like that around on his back?" asked Tom.
"Always when he"s getting specimens," d.i.c.k whispered back.
By this time the professor, his eyes agleam over his latest discovery, was back at the side of the car.
"Ah, my beauty, I have you safe now," he said, patting the side of the bagful of specimens. "Boys, this is my lucky day."
The boys could hardly keep from smiling at the little man"s delight. It appeared hard to believe that anyone could find pleasure in packing about a sackful of heavy rocks on a hot day. But the professor"s eyes were sparkling. It was clear he considered himself one of the most fortunate of men.
d.i.c.k introduced the boys and, to their surprise, the professor declared that he had read of their various adventures and inventions.
"We are actually fellow adventurers in the field of science," he cried, rattling his bag of specimens enthusiastically. "Some time I should like to call on you and see your workshops."
"You will be welcome at any time," said Jack cordially, and then the professor declared that he must be getting home.
"If we are going your way we can give you a ride," said Tom.
"Thank you, I"ll accept that invitation. But what an odd-looking automobile you have there."
The boys explained to him that it was a new type of car that they were trying out for the first time and then d.i.c.k helped the scientist lift his bicycle into the tonneau. He would have helped him with his weighty load of specimens, but the professor refused to be parted from them. As they started off again he sat with the bag firmly gripped between his knees, as if afraid someone would separate him from it.
The professor lived with a spinster sister to whom his specimens were the bane of her life. As the car rolled swiftly along, he occupied his time by peeping into the bag at frequent intervals to see that none of the specimens, by some freak of nature, flew out.
All at once he reached forward and clutched Jack by the shoulder.
"Stop! My dear young friend, please stop at once!"
"What"s the matter?" asked Jack, slowing down at the urgent summons.
"Look! Look there at that rock!"
To Jack the rock in question was just an ordinary bit of stone in a wall fencing in a pasture in which some cattle were grazing. But evidently the professor thought otherwise.
"It"s a fine specimen of green granite," he exclaimed. "I must have it. How did such a fine piece ever come to be placed in a common wall?"
The car having now been brought to a stop, he leaped nimbly out, clutching his geological hammer in one hand and his precious sack of specimens in the other. He rushed up to the wall and stood for a minute with his head on one side, like an inquisitive bird.
"Too bad. That stone"s a large flat one and goes right through the center of the wall," he mused. "The wall must come down."
And then, to the boys" consternation, he began demolishing the wall, pulling down the stones and throwing them right and left.
"Professor, you"ll get in trouble," warned d.i.c.k in alarm. "Those cattle will get out. The farmer will be after us."
But the professor paid not the slightest attention. Taking off his coat, he resumed his operations with even greater vigor than before. The cattle in the field eyed him curiously. Then they began to move toward him. In front of the rest of the herd was a big black-and-white animal with sharp horns and big, thick neck.
It gave a sudden bellow and then rushed straight at the considerable gap the man of science had made in the stone fence.
"It"s a bull!" yelled d.i.c.k suddenly. "Run, professor! Run or he"ll toss you!"
With lowered horns the bull rushed down upon the unconscious scientist at locomotive speed. But the professor was oblivious to everything else but uncovering the odd-looking green stone embedded in the heart of the wall.