Jerry looked skeptical. "How?"
Rick stood up. "Long as we've started talking about it, I may as well show you."
The others rose, too. As they did so, a shaggy little dog crawled from under Rick's chair where he had been napping.
"Dismal and I will put the cake away," Mrs. Brant said.
At the sound of his name the pup rolled over on his back and played dead, his only trick. Rick bent and scratched his ribs in the way the pup liked best. "Go with Mom," he commanded. "Come on, the rest of you. Maybe I can get some free advice from the director of the Spindrift Foundation."
Hartson Brant smiled. "If you're looking for a technical consultant, Rick, my price is very reasonable."
"It would have to be," Rick admitted ruefully. "I've spent my entire fortune on this thing."
"The whole dollar," Scotty added.
The boys' rooms were on the second floor in the north wing of the big house. But where Scotty's was usually neat as a barracks squad room, the result of his service in the Marines, Rick's was usually a clutter of apparatus. Living on Spindrift Island with the example of his father and the other scientists to follow, it was natural that he should be interested in science. He was more fortunate than most boys with such an interest, because he was permitted to use the laboratory apparatus freely and his part-time work as a junior technician gave him spending money with which to buy equipment. Another source of revenue was his little two-seater plane. He was the island's fast ferry service to the mainland.
His room was neater than usual at the moment because he had not bothered to connect most of his apparatus after returning from the South Pacific. The induction heater that he used for midnight snacks was in a closet. His automatic window opener was not in use, nor was his amateur radio transmitter.