"Don't be too long now!" called Tom to the girl, as she hurried toward the house. "Never mind about your hair, or whether your hat's on straight. You're going to wear a cap, anyhow, and tuck your hair up under that. It's hot down here, but it will be cold up above; so tell Mrs. Baggert to see that you're warmly dressed."
"All right," and gaily she waved her hand to him. Now that she had made her decision, and was really going up, she was not half so frightened as she had been in the contemplation of it.
As Tom climbed out of the machine, to give it a careful inspection, though he was certain there was nothing wrong, an aged colored man shuffled toward him.
"Yo'—yo'll be mighty careful ob Miss Nestor now, won't yo', Massa Tom?" asked the man.
"Of course I will, Eradicate," was the young inventor's answer.
"Case we ain't got many laik her no mo', an' dat's de truf, Massa Tom," went on the old man. "So be mighty careful laik!"
"That's what I will, Rad! And, while I'm up in the air, don't you and Koku have any trouble."
"Ho! Trouble wif dat onery no-'count giant! I guess not!" and the colored man limped off, highly indignant.
Satisfied, from an inspection of his machine, that it was as nearly mechanically perfect as it was possible to be, Tom Swift finished his trip around it and stood near the big propeller, waiting for Mary Nestor to reappear. Presently she did so, and Tom gaily waved his hand to her.
"You're a picture!" he cried, as he saw how particularly "fetching" she looked in the aviator's costume which was like his own. Because of the danger of entanglement, Miss Nestor had doffed her skirts, and wore the costume of all aviators—men and women.