"Here goes!" said the young inventor.
He rolled back a small rug in the middle of the floor to expose a massive steel trap door. This he unlocked by twirling the dial of a complicated mechanism. Some years before Tom had constructed beneath his laboratory an impregnable chamber to safeguard his secret plans. He called it his Chest of Secrets, and guarded it well.
Tom Rolled Back a Small Rug
Even Ned Newton, Tom's closest friend and business associate, did not know the entire contents of the massive vault. Only Tom and his father were aware of all the inventions concealed there.
"Some of these inventions must not be known to the world in its present state," the elder man had said.
One of them was the terrible electric death-ray, capable of destroying anything in its path. Only if the United States should be invaded by an enemy power, would this be revealed.
There Was a Death Ray
"Here it is," said Tom, joining his chum after a few minutes spent in the vault.