“Tom Swift! Tom Swift!” exclaimed the visitor. “Bless my telescope, Tom Swift, but I must see you! I must see you at once! Tom Swift!”
“Ho!” cried Tom, starting up. “Ho, Koku! Bring Mr. Damon right out here.”
Hearing the young inventor’s voice, Mr. Wakefield Damon waited for nothing more. He rushed around the corner of the house, appearing in an excited and a rather disheveled state upon the side porch where the two Swifts were sitting.
“Bless my decrepit extremities!” exclaimed the emphatic gentleman, thus referring to his own feet as they stumbled over a low ottoman and a rumpled mat. “I’m so excited I can’t even walk straight. It’s the greatest—well, how-do, Barton Swift? And you, Tom—how are you?”
Both his hosts welcomed the eccentric Wakefield Damon warmly. He was a good friend.
“What good wind has brought you here, Damon?” asked Mr. Swift, giving the visitor his hand.
“No such element as wind,” declared Mr. Damon, with his usual energy. “Air, fire and water—the three principal elements. Nothing like air. It’s frozen water has brought me here, I reckon,” and he burst into a great laugh at his own fantasy. “Ice has brought me here, not wind.”
“I heard your motor-car,” said Tom smiling. “You don’t mean to say you have invented a way of running a car with ice for fuel?”
“Nothing like that! Nothing like that!” cried Mr. Damon. “The gasoline people still rob me. But listen! I’ve got ice in my head—and some brains, I hope,” he added. “At any rate, I know where to come for help when I get stuck in anything.”
“You bring us a problem, do you?” asked Mr. Swift. “Well, Damon, what is it?”