TOM SWIFT AND HIS
CHEST OF SECRETS
CHAPTER I
A CRASH ON THE ROOF
There was a puffing as of labored breath, a shuffling of feet in the hallway, a banging and clattering sound, and then a voice cried:
“Where you have ’um, Master?”
Ned Newton looked up from his desk and glanced across the room at Tom Swift who was poring over a mass of blue prints. The young inventor smiled at his equally youthful business manager as Ned remarked:
“There’s your cute little giant Koku up to some of his interesting tricks again! Sounds as if he’d caught Eradicate by the hair of his bald head and was bringing him in upside down!”
“Plague take those fellows!” muttered Tom, a look of annoyance passing over his face. “If they don’t stop this everlasting clashing to see who is going to do things around here, I’ll get rid of them both! That’s what I will!”
Ned Newton laughed—laughed so hard that a pencil he had been using flew out of his hand and fell to the floor, breaking the fine point the young manager had put on in order to work over the financial affairs of the Swift Construction Company. Then Ned’s face sobered as he noted his broken pencil and he exclaimed:
“Oh, soapsuds!”