"Have you said anything to the government yet?"
"No; I want to have it pretty well perfected before I do. Besides, I don't want any publicity about it until I'm ready. If these Universal people are after me I'll fool 'em."
"That's right, Tom! Well, I must go. Another week of this Liberty Bond campaign!"
"I suppose you'll be glad when it's over."
"Well, I don't know," said Ned slowly. "It's part of my small contribution to Uncle Sam. I'm not like you—I can't invent things."
"But you have an awful smooth line of talk, Ned!" laughed his chum. "I believe you could sell chloride of sodium to some of the fishes in the Great Salt Lake—that is if it has fishes."
"I don't know that it has, Tom. And, anyhow, I'm not posing as a salt salesman," and Ned grinned. "But I must really go. Our bank hasn't reached its quota in the sale of Liberty Bonds yet, and it's up to me to see that it doesn't fall down."
"Go to it, Ned! And I'll get busy on my silent motor."
"Getting busy" was Tom Swift's favorite occupation, and when he was working on a new idea, as was the case now, he was seldom idle, night or day.
"I have hardly seen you for two weeks," Mary Nestor wrote him one day. "Aren't you ever coming to see me any more, or take me for a ride?"