“There is a whole lot I can do to her yet to make her of more value both in war and commerce. I wish I might make these improvements, however, without so much publicity. The Swift Construction Company is getting into the papers too much.” Then he grinned suddenly. “You know, after all, what I want is a quiet life.”
Ned, listening to this, made an awful face.
“Whoo!” he shouted. “The sort of quiet life Tom Swift wants would make a jumping jack hysterical! Tom, you know you could not keep quiet and give up adventures if you had five hundred times the fortune Mr. Damon is bringing home with him from Iceland.”
“Bless my foreign exchange!” exclaimed Mr. Damon, “that is a true word you said, Ned Newton. Why, anybody who has anything to do with Tom Swift is bound to get into the most exciting situations——”
“Listen to him!” cried Tom.
“We know who is the person who manages to get into trouble without any help,” declared Mr. Nestor laughing. “I certainly am obliged to Brother Damon for taking me to the Arctic. It has restored my health. I feel like another man again.
“Nevertheless, if Wakefield Damon asks me to walk down the street with him to buy a necktie after this, I shall be afraid to accompany him. Something unexpected is bound to happen when one is in that gentleman’s company.”
“Bless my reputation!” groaned the eccentric gentleman, “have you all such an opinion of me as this? I declare! I will go home and raise fancy chickens and nothing shall entice me on another journey. Humph! That is, until Tom Swift decides to start off to the antipodes. I could not contain myself at home if I knew he was away junketing.”
Forewarned of the coming of the flying boat, half the population of Shopton and all Tom’s workmen were awaiting its appearance. Tom brought the Winged Arrow over the field behind the shops, spiraled down, and took the ground very lightly. When they opened the door in the side of the hull the first faces they saw were those of Mary Nestor and her mother and Mr. Barton Swift and his faithful attendant, Eradicate Sampson.