第18章

Curious as it may seem, Eradicate, the oldest and certainly not the most energetic of the party assembled in the experiment room, was the first to recover himself and arise.Tottering to his feet he gave one look at the testing block, whence the motor had torn itself.Then he looked at the prostrate figures around him, none of them hurt, but all stunned and very much startled.Then the gaze of Eradicate traveled to the hole in the roof.It was a gaping, ragged hole, for the motor was heavy and the roof of flimsy material.And then the colored man exclaimed:

"Good land ob massy! Did I do dat?"

His tone was one of such startled contrition, and so tragic, that Tom Swift, rueful as he felt over the failure of his experiment and the danger they had all been in, could not help laughing.

"I take it, hearing that from you, Tom, that we're all right," said Ned Newton, as he recovered himself and brushed some dirt off his coat.Ned was a natty dresser.

"Yes, we seem to be all right," replied Tom slowly."I can't say what damage the flying motor has done outside, but--""Bless my insurance policy! but what happened?" asked Mr.Damon."I saw Eradicate pull on that lever as you told him to, Tom, and then things all went topsy-turvy! Did he pull the wrong handle?""No, it wasn't Rad's fault at all," said Tom."The trouble was, as I guess I'll find when I investigate, that I put too much power into the motor, and the muffler didn't give any chance for the accumulated exhaust gases to expand and escape.I didn't allow for that, and they simply backed up, compressed and exploded.I guess that's the whole explanation.""I'm inclined to agree with you, Son," said Mr.Swift dryly."Don't try to get rid of all the noise at once.Eliminate it by degrees and it will be safer.""I guess so," agreed Tom.

By this time a score of workmen from the other shops had congregated around the one though the roof of which the motor had been blown.Tom opened the door to assure Jackson and the others that no one was hurt, andthen the young inventor saw the exploded motor had buried in the dirt a short distance away from the experiment building.

"Lucky none of us were standing over it when it went up," said Tom, as he made an inspection of the broken machine."We'd have gone through the roof with it.""She certainly went sailing!" commented Ned."Must have been a lot of power there, Tom."And this was evidenced by the bent and twisted rods that had held the motor to the testing block, and by the cylinders, some of which were torn apart as though made of paper instead of heavy steel.But for the fact that all the force of the explosion was directly upward, instead of at the sides, none might have been left alive in the shop.All had escaped most fortunately, and they realized this.

"Well," queried Ned, as Tom gave orders to have the damaged machine removed and the roof repaired, "does this end the wonderful silent motor, Tom?""End it! What do you mean--"

"I mean are you going to experiment any further?""Why, of course! Just because I've had one failure doesn't mean that I'm going to give up.Especially when I know what the matter was--not leaving any vent for the escaping gases.Why this isn't anything.When I was perfecting my giant cannon I was nearly blown up more than once, and you remember how we got stuck in the submarine.""I should say I did!" exclaimed Ned with a shudder."I don't want any more of that.But as between being blown through a roof and held at the bottom of the sea, I don't know that there's much choice.""Well, perhaps not," agreed Tom."But as for ending my experiments, I wouldn't dream of such a thing! Why, I've only just begun! I'll have a silent motor yet!""And a non-explosive one, I hope," added Mr.Damon dryly."Bless my shoe buttons, Tom, but if my wife knew what danger I'd been in she'd never let me come over to see you any more.""Well, the next time I invite you to a test I'll be more careful," promised the young inventor.