THE BOY INVENTORS’ ELECTRIC HYDROAEROPLANE

BY

RICHARD BONNER AUTHOR OF “THE BOY INVENTORS’ WIRELESS TRIUMPH,” “THE BOY INVENTORS AND THE VANISHING GUN,” “THE BOY INVENTORS’ DIVING TORPEDO BOAT,” “THE BOY INVENTORS’ FLYING SHIP,” ETC., ETC.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY CHARLES L. WRENN

NEW YORK HURST & COMPANY PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1914, BY HURST & COMPANY

[Pg 1]

CHAPTER I. A NEW FRIEND MADE.

“Are either Mr. Chadwick or Mr. Jesson about?”

“Humph!” and the gangling, rather disagreeable-looking youth who had answered the summons to the door of the Boy Inventors’ workshop, gave a supercilious look over the dusty and worn, although carefully mended, clothes of the dark-eyed, dark-haired, slender youth who confronted him.

“What do you want to know that for, anyhow?” and upon the personal pronoun he placed a contemptuous emphasis.

[Pg 4]

“That is a question to which I can only reply when I can see either Jack Chadwick or Tom Jesson personally. My name is Ned Nevins,—not that either of them knows me,—but will you be so kind as to find out if they’ll see me?”

“If you can’t tell me your business, you can’t see them. State what you want to me. If it’s money——”

“It is not!”

The dark-eyed young visitor’s eyes held a warning flash which the other lad, who was half a head taller and far stouter of build than Ned Nevins, affected not to notice.

“Well, you can’t speak to them.” This with an air of finality.

“But you don’t understand——”

“I do, perfectly. They are both far too busy to bother with any inquisitive kind of tramp that happens along.”

“Then you won’t let them know I would like to see them?”

The other’s voice rose angrily.

[Pg 5]

“I said ‘No’ once. N-O-no! Isn’t that enough?”

“Quite enough.”

Ned Nevins turned away. As he did so, the other lad, an employee of the Boy Inventors, and a former school chum, noticed that he had under his arm a box which he appeared to handle with unusual care. But Sam Hinkley noted also Ned’s dejected and downcast air. He decided to humiliate him still further.

“Get a move on—you. Skip!”

Ned hastened his pace. He felt too disappointed and tired to retort to the bully as he should have done. Sam Hinkley interpreted this as cowardice on Ned’s part, and being a natural bully he decided to improve the occasion according to his own delight. He came up behind Ned and gave the slightly-built lad a strong shove.

Ned faced ’round, and his pale face flushed an angry crimson.

[Pg 6]

“Don’t do that again, please!”

Young Hinkley’s rejoinder was to make a rush at him. He extended both his hands to shove the visitor, whom he had found so unwelcome, off the premises. But the next instant he met with a setback. Still holding his precious box under one arm, Ned’s fingers closed on the bully’s wrists. They shut down with a grip like steel handcuffs.

“Ow! Ouch! Leggo my hands,” roared Sam at the top of his voice.

“From what I’ve heard of Jack Chadwick and Tom Jesson I don’t believe they would tolerate for an instant the way you have behaved toward me,” was the firm reply. “March!”

“Where are we going?” inquired Sam, writhing painfully under the young stranger’s powerful grip, unable to do anything, try as he would to shake it off.

[Pg 7]

“Straight into that workshop. From what I can hear, I believe we will find those whom I wish to see inside.”

Sam looked very uncomfortable. He was the son of fairly well-to-do parents in the little town of Nestorville, on the outskirts of which Mr. Chadwick’s home was situated. Jack and Tom had taken him on because he was a youth who had always shown mechanical ability and had pleaded persistently for a chance to work in the big experimental shop at High Towers.

But a fair trial of Sam Hinkley had not resulted in his rising in favor with his young employers. He had been detected in several mean acts. Besides, they felt he was hardly a lad to be trusted with the important secrets of the workshop, in which most of the inventions of the boys and their father and uncle were worked out. So that had Sam but known it, he was by no means so important a factor at High Towers as he imagined.

“Lemmo go and I’ll take you in,” howled Sam.

[Pg 8]

“Very well. You might have done so in the first place.”

But no sooner were Sam’s hands released than he aimed a savage blow at young Nevins.

“I’ll trim you for this, you—you scarecrow, you!” he bawled out. “I’ll fix you. I’ll——”

“Here, here! What’s all the trouble about?”

The question was asked by a tall, well-built youth with curly dark hair and sparkling, intelligent eyes, who had just appeared at the door of the workshop.

“I—I wanted to find Mr. Chadwick, Jr.,” began the newcomer, while Sam looked abashed.

“Sure you weren’t looking for trouble?” asked Jack, but a twinkle in his eyes belied the implied reproach in the question. He knew Sam Hinkley from the soles of his shoes up. Besides, he had witnessed the last part of the recent scene and realized how the land lay.

“Go back on your job,” he ordered Sam brusquely, “those bolts must be ready by noon at the latest.”

“Bu-bu-but——” began Sam, and then, read[Pg 9]ing what he saw in Jack’s eye aright, he obeyed, but not without a backward glance at Ned Nevins.

“Why—why, you are Jack—I mean Mister——”

“That’s all right,” was the smiling response, “I am Jack Chadwick. What did you wish to see me about?”

“Principally about getting a job. I——”

“I’m afraid there’s nothing here for you,” was the reply, as Jack glanced with interest at the intelligent face that gazed so eagerly into his own, and then, as he saw the travel-stained lad’s countenance fall he added, “You see this is an experimental shop mainly, and——”

“I know. I’ve heard all about your inventions, the Sky-ship and the diving Torpedo Boat and so on. I love mechanics and I’m sure I could make good if you’d give me a chance.”

“What is your name?”

“Nevins is my name, sir.”

[Pg 10]

“Ever had any experience along such lines?”

“Yes, sir, my uncle was an inventor. He was poor and worked in a machine-shop, but when he was at home he and I used to spend all our time in a workshop he had fitted up. You see my folks died a long time ago and I was brought up in my uncle’s home. He said that some day I’d be famous if I worked hard and that I had a natural ability for mechanics and——”

Ned Nevins stopped short, flushed over what he felt had been a conceited speech. But Jack glanced at him encouragingly. The young inventor was quick to read character. He began to take an interest in this ragged visitor, who had dropped down out of the skies, so to speak.

“But you are not living with your uncle now, Nevins?”

“Oh, no. He was killed a month or more ago in an accident in the mills. My aunt didn’t want me ’round the house; no more did my cousin. So I packed up what I had; it wasn’t much,” with a rueful smile,[Pg 11] “and—and——”

“Set out to seek your fortune. So far, if you don’t mind my saying it, you don’t appear to have succeeded very well. And so you want a job. How have you been making your way?”

“Doing odd jobs for farmers and so on. I’m clever at repairing automobile machinery, and I earned a little that way. You see, my object was to make my way here, otherwise I might have got two or three jobs in garages or machine shops.”

“Why were you so anxious to come here?” demanded Jack, beginning to feel an interest in this persistent youngster.

“Because of a strange legacy my uncle left me.”

“That’s an odd reason.”

“I know it; but may I explain?”

“Surely. Go ahead.”

[Pg 12]

“Well, it was a legacy that he said would bring me fame and fortune some day. It may have been only an inventor’s dream. My poor uncle had many such, or it may not be all that he thought of it. There were many reasons why I couldn’t consult any one in my own town about it, and as I’d read of you and felt I could trust you and your advice, I sought you out. But if the invention, for that’s what the legacy was, is worth anything or not, I want a job.”

“Come on inside, Nevins. You seem to have the right stuff in you. We’ll have a talk.”

And with a wide-eyed youth behind him, Jack led the way into the workshop. Sam Hinkley viewed his young employer and the latter’s companion with marked disfavor from his work bench.

“Wormed your way into the place already, have you?” he muttered.[Pg 13] “I’ll keep my eye on you, young fellow, and don’t you forget it.”

CHAPTER II. AN INVENTION DESCRIBED.

Ned Nevins had told nothing but the simple truth when he stated that he had endured many hardships and much rough travel under unpleasant conditions in order to obtain an interview with the Boy Inventors.

He was a boy of singularly firm character and persistency or he would never have triumphed over the obstacles he had conquered in order to gain his ambition. When Ned’s uncle, Jeptha Nevins, had died, he had entrusted to the boy the tin box which we have seen Ned guarding with so much care. It contained plans and specifications of an invention upon which the elder Nevins had spent all his spare time for many years.

Whether the invention was a practical one or[Pg 14] not, Ned, skillful as he was in the line of mechanics, did not know. But his uncle’s faith in the value of his invention was so great that he had inspired his nephew with almost implicit confidence in the soundness of his judgment.

Ned might have stayed in his home town and awaited a more favorable opportunity for setting out on his travels but for one thing. Jeptha Nevins had a son, a hulking ne’er-do-well sort of lad, or rather young man, for he was some years the senior of Ned, who was sixteen.

Following his father’s death, “Hank” Nevins, as he was known among his cronies, made a big fuss when he learned that Ned had been left the plans of Jeptha Nevins’ invention. There was little else but the furniture in the house and a small sum of money in the savings bank; and so Hank Nevins laid formal claim to the plans of the invention from which Jeptha Nevins had hoped so much.

But Ned refused absolutely to give them up to[Pg 15] Hank. With almost his dying words, Jeptha Nevins had entrusted the plans to his nephew, for he had long since given up hopes of making anything out of Hank. In fact Ned knew that it had been his uncle’s wish that Hank should know nothing of the invention, but in some way the latter had discovered the fact of its existence, and he hoped, that by selling it, (provided it was in any way practical,) he might obtain some money which he could expend in dissipation.

When he found that Ned was unwilling, or rather refused absolutely, to give up the plans, Hank had flung out of the house with all manner of threats, among them being that he would force his cousin to give up the coveted plans by process of law. Ned knew nothing of law and like many persons similarly situated, the idea of Hank’s resorting to lawyers to obtain possession of the plans alarmed him. Among Hank’s acquaintances was a young law clerk of “sporty” proclivities. With the aid of this young limb of[Pg 16] the law, Hank had succeeded in thoroughly alarming Ned as to the legality of his retention of the papers. Matters were constituted thus when Ned determined not to risk the possession of his uncle’s plans any longer but to leave the small cottage, where they all lived, and seek counsel and aid elsewhere than in his native village.

From the first time he had read of them, the Boy Inventors had possessed a large place in Ned’s mind. In his extremity, therefore, he had decided to seek them out and try to interest them in the untried invention.

“Sit down,” said Jack, when the two boys were inside a small room at one end of the workshop which, for lack of a better word, was called the office. It was a very business-like looking room. Books on technical topics lined the shelves at one end of it. Models, samples of materials, test-tubes and other apparatus occupied most of the rest of the available space.

Under the book shelves, however, was a desk.[Pg 17] It was to one of the chairs standing beside this latter piece of furniture that Jack motioned his odd guest.

Ned sank into the chair with an alacrity that made it plain that he was tired. He had, in fact, come some miles from his last stopping place that morning.

“I’m sorry that you had that trouble with Sam Hinkley,” began Jack in a kindly tone, “he should have known better than to treat you as he did.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” the other assured him hastily, “I’d have stood for a lot more than that in order to get a chance to see you and tell you what I’ve traveled a good way to say.”

“You said you had an invention, I think.”

“Yes; but it is not, properly speaking, mine,” and then Ned Nevins went on briefly to describe the circumstances by which he had come into possession of the plans in which both he and his uncle set so much store. But up to this point he had[Pg 18] not mentioned the nature of the invention and Jack brought him to the point by a question.

“And just what may this invention be?”

Ned Nevins hesitated a few seconds before replying.

“I hardly know just what to call it,” he said, “but I guess an electric hydroaeroplane about describes it.”

Jack’s face betrayed his interest.

“You mean a craft capable of air and water travel that is driven by electricity?” he asked.

[Pg 19]

“That’s just it. But there are many novel features about it, however. My uncle set most store by one particular novelty in its construction, and that was the fact that it was driven by electricity instead of gasolene. Gasolene is bulky, dangerous and heavy to carry, and sometimes hard to obtain, but by using an electric generator, worked while the machine is in motion, the Nevins hydroaeroplane, as my uncle called it, has plenty of cheap power always obtainable and is simpler than gasolene-driven motors in a number of ways.”

“But about your storage batteries—I suppose that’s the idea?”

Ned Nevins nodded.

“That’s just the point I was coming to,” he said; “one of the most notable features of the Nevins hydroaeroplane is the fact that its power is furnished by storage batteries many times lighter than any yet constructed, and capable of developing many times the power. But the plans will show you all that far better than I can explain.”

“I should like to see them.”

Although he was interested and showed it, Jack Chadwick had seen far too many impracticable inventions to wax enthusiastic over any scheme till he had examined into it for himself. But he knew that if young Nevins had what he said he had, he was in possession of a big thing.

So it was with considerable expectancy that[Pg 20] he watched young Nevins fumble with the lock of the battered tin case. Finally he opened the receptacle and drew out a roll of papers. These proved to be blue prints, and closely penned writings covering several foolscap sheets.

Naturally, Jack’s attention was first directed to the blue prints that young Nevins eagerly spread out on the table before him. Accustomed as he was to such things, he read the intricate lines and tracings almost as plainly as print.

[Pg 21]

CHAPTER III. AN IMPORTANT DECISION.

“Well, what do you think of it?”

Ned asked the question with almost pitiful eagerness. His tone clearly betrayed how much the answer meant to him.

“I think that the idea appears feasible, but of course, I can’t say anything definite yet,” was Jack’s rejoinder. “I will have to consult with my cousin, Tom Jesson——”

Ned nodded that he had heard of young Jesson, who had had so much to do with the Boy Inventors’ work.

“And after we have gone over the plans together we can tell you just what we think of it. Suppose that the idea appears to be possible to work out, what would your plans be?”

“That we each take an equal chance in the[Pg 22] profits that may come from it,” replied Ned in quick, certain tones that showed he had thought the matter out all clearly in his own mind.

“Well, that would come later. You would be clearly entitled to more than a third share, for the invention practically belongs to you.”

“Yes, but I have no capital to put into its manufacture. My idea was that you would build the craft, with me to help, for I know my uncle’s ideas in regard to the craft backward, almost.”

Jack smiled.

“I see you have every detail figured out.”

“If you knew how much I have thought of it!” exclaimed Ned.

“I can well imagine that. Well, Ned, I can promise you one thing—if the invention offers any possibility of success we will undertake it. We have nothing on hand just now and this is surely a big idea you have brought us.”

“I believe in it,” declared the boy fervently.

[Pg 23]

“Well, that’s half the battle. Suppose you come and see us to-morrow morning. We will go over the plans to-night and see what we think of them. By the way, where are you staying?”

“Nowhere just at present. I came straight up here as soon as I arrived in Nestorville.”

“You must have been eager to see us.”

“I was, indeed. I had traveled a good many miles to do so, as I explained.”

“Well, Sam Hinkley’s father keeps a sort of hotel in Nestorville. It is cheaper than a regular first-class place but I think you will find it comfortable.”

“Anything will suit me. I shan’t sleep much to-night, anyhow,” replied Ned, taking no notice of the name that Jack had mentioned.

“Don’t build too many hopes, Ned. I should hate to have to disappoint you.”

The boys shook hands and parted. Jack watched the dusty figure of Ned Nevins as the boy wended his way down the hill.

[Pg 24]

“There goes a boy with the right stuff in him,” he said to himself. Although he was young in years, Jack Chadwick was ripe in experience, as those of our readers who have followed the adventures of the Boy Inventors through the various volumes know.

For the benefit of those who are making their first acquaintance with the two lads, we will briefly relate the careers of Jack Chadwick and Tom Jesson, his cousin, up to the time that we resume our friendship with them in the present book.

Jack Chadwick’s father was the famous Professor Chadwick, whose various inventions had made him well-to-do, and who was known throughout the civilized world. The Chadwick method of steel reduction and the same inventor’s ingenious devices for rock boring and drilling came to the notice of the general public during the construction of the Panama Canal. But Professor Chadwick had to his credit a host of other inventions which, if not quite so well[Pg 25] known to the world at large, none the less played a large part in the history of civilization.

The Professor, whose wife had died soon after Jack’s birth and before fame came to him, had purchased the estate of High Towers, lying a short distance from the pretty little town of Nestorville as a secluded place in which to carry on his researches. Not long after he had acquired it, Mr. Jasper Jesson, his brother-in-law and a well-known explorer and biologist, was reported missing while on an expedition in the tropics. As Mr. Jesson was also a widower, the care of young Tom Jesson, the explorer’s only child, devolved upon Prof. Chadwick.