"Oh! Oh!" yelled Pete.
"You did that on purpose, Tom Swift!" shouted Andy, wiping some of the blacking from his left eye. "I"ll have you arrested for that! You"ve ruined my car, and look at my suit!"
"Mine"s worse!" murmured Sam, glancing down at his light trousers, which were of the polka-dot pattern now.
"No, mine is," insisted Pete, whose white shirt was of the hue of a stove pipe.
Andy wiped some of the black stuff from his nose, whence it was dropping on the steering wheel.
"You just wait!" the bully called to Tom. "I"ll get even with you for this!"
"It was an accident! I didn"t mean to do that," explained Tom, trying not to laugh, as he dismounted from his motor-cycle, ready to render what a.s.sistance he could.
CHAPTER IV
TALK OF A NEW BANK
The three cronies were in a sorrowful plight. The black fluid dripped from them, and formed little puddles in the car. Andy had used his handkerchief to wipe some of the stuff from his face, but the linen was soon useless, for it quickly absorbed the blacking.
"There"s a little brook over here," volunteered Tom. "You might wash in that. The stuff comes off easily. It isn"t like ink," and he had to laugh, as he thought of the happening.
"Here! You quit that!" ordered Andy. "You"ve gone too far, Tom Swift!"
"Didn"t I tell you it was an accident?" inquired the young inventor.
"It wasn"t!" cried Sam. "You threw the bottle at us! I saw you!"
"It slipped from my pocket," declared the youth, and he described how the accident occurred. "I"ll help you clean your car, Andy," he added.
"I don"t want your help! If you come near me I"ll--I"ll punch your nose!" cried Andy, now almost beside himself with rage.
"All right, if you don"t want my help I don"t care," answered Tom, glad enough not to have to soil his hands and clothes. He felt that it was partly his fault, and he would have done all he could to remedy matters, but his good offers being declined, he felt that it was useless to insist further.
He remounted his motor-cycle, and rode off, the last view he had of the trio being one where they were at the edge of the brook, trying to remove the worst traces of the black fluid. As Tom turned around for a final glimpse, Andy shook his fist at him, and called out something.
"I guess Andy"ll have it in for me," mused Tom. "Well, I can"t help it.
I owed him something on account, but I didn"t figure on paying it in just this way," and he thought of the time the bully had locked him in the ballast tanks of the submarine, thereby nearly smothering him to death.
That night Andy Foger told his father what had happened, for Mr. Foger inquired the reason for the black stains on his son"s face and hands.
But Andy did not give the true version. He said Tom had purposely thrown the bottle of blacking at him.
"So that"s the kind of a lad Tom Swift is, eh?" remarked Andy"s father.
"Well, Andy, I think you will soon have a chance to get even with him."
"How, pop?"
"I can"t tell you now, but I have a plan for making Tom sorry he ever did anything to you, and I will also pay back some old scores to Mr.
Swift and Mr. Damon. I"ll ruin their bank for them, that"s what I"ll do."
"Ruin their bank, pop? How?"
"You wait and see. The Swift crowd will get off their high horse soon, or I"m mistaken. My plans are nearly completed, but I can"t tell you about them. I"ll ruin Mr. Swift, though, that"s what I"ll do," and Mr.
Foger shook his head determinedly.
Tom was soon at his home, and Mrs. Baggert, hearing the noise of his machine, as it entered the front yard, came to the side door.
"Where"s my blacking?" she asked, as our hero dismounted and untied the bundle of steel tubes he had purchased.
"I--I used it," he answered, laughing.
"Tom Swift! You don"t mean to say you took my stove polish to use in your battery, do you?"
"No, I used it to polish off Andy Foger and some of his cronies," and the young inventor told, with much gusto, what had happened. Mrs.
Baggert could not help joining in the laugh, and when Tom offered to ride back and purchase some more of the polish for her, she said it did not matter, as she could wait until the next day.
The lad was soon busy in his machine shop, making several larger cells for the new storage battery. He wanted to give it a more severe test.
He worked for several days on this, and when he had one unit of cells complete, he attached the motor for an efficiency trial.
"We"ll see how many miles that will make," he remarked to his father.
"Have you thought anything of the type of car you are going to build?"
asked the aged inventor of his son.
"Yes, somewhat. It will be almost of the regulation style, but with two removable seats at the rear, with curtains for protection, and a place in front for two persons. This can also be protected with curtains when desired."
"But what about the motors and the battery?"
"They will be located under the middle of the car. There will be one set of batteries there, together with the motor, and another set of batteries will be placed under the removable seats in what I call the tonneau, though, of course, it isn"t really that. A smaller set will also be placed forward, and there will be ample room for carrying tools and such things."
"About how far do you expect your car will go with one charging of the battery?"
"Well, if I can make it do three hundred miles I"ll be satisfied, but I"m going to try for four hundred."
"What will you do when your battery runs out?"
"Recharge it."
"Suppose you"re not near a charging station?"
"Well, Dad, of course those are some of the details I"ve got to work out. I"m planning a register gauge now, that will give warning about fifty miles before the battery is run down. That will leave me a margin to work on. And I"m going to have it fixed so I can take current from any trolley line, as well as from a regular charging station. My battery will be capable of being recharged very quickly, or, in case of need, I can take out the old cells and put in new ones.
"That"s a very good idea. Well, I hope you succeed."
A few evenings after this, when Tom was busy in his machine shop, he heard some one enter. He looked up from the gauge of the motor, which he was studying, and, for a moment, he could make out nothing in the dark interior of the shop, for he was working in a brilliant light.