Tom Swift & his Electric Runabout(汤姆史威特和他的电力小轿车)
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2024-12-25
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TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RUNABOUT or The Speediest Car on the Road
1
TOM SWIFT AND HIS
ELECTRIC RUNABOUT
or The Speediest Car on
the Road
VICTOR APPLETON
TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RUNABOUT or The Speediest Car on the Road
2
CHAPTER I
TOM HOPES FOR A PRIZE
"Father," exclaimed Tom Swift, looking up from a paper he was
reading, "I think I can win that prize!"
"What prize is that?" inquired the aged inventor, gazing away from a
drawing of a complicated machine, and pausing in his task of making
some intricate calculations. "You don't mean to say, Tom, that you're going
to have a try for a government prize for a submarine, after all."
"No," not a submarine prize, dad," and the youth laughed. "Though
our Advance would take the prize away from almost any other under-water
boat, I imagine. No, it's another prize I'm thinking about."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I see by this paper that the Touring Club of America has offered
three thousand dollars for the speediest electric car. The tests are to come
off this fall, on a new and specially built track on Long Island, and it's to
be an endurance contest for twenty-four hours, or a race for distance, they
haven't yet decided. But I'm going to have a try for it, dad, and, besides
winning the prize, I think I'll take Andy Foger down a peg.
"What's Andy been doing now?"
"Oh, nothing more than usual. He's always mean, and looking for a
chance to make trouble for me, but I didn't refer to anything special He has
a new auto, you know, and he boasts that it's the fastest one in this country.
I'll show him that it isn't, for I'm going to win this prize with the speediest
car on the road."
"But, Tom, you haven't any automobile, you know," and Mr. Swift
looked anxiously at his son, who was smiling confidently. "You can't be
going to make your motor-cycle into an auto; are you?"
"No, dad."
"Then how are you going to take part in the prize contest? Besides,
electric cars, as far as I know, aren't specially speedy."
"I know it, and one reason why this club has arranged the contest is to
improve the quality of electric automobiles. I'm going to build an electric
TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RUNABOUT or The Speediest Car on the Road
3
runabout, dad."
"An electric runabout? But it will have to be operated with a storage
battery, Tom, and you haven't--"
"I guess you're going to say I haven't any storage battery, dad,"
interrupted Mr. Swift's son. "Well, I haven't yet, but I'm going to have one.
I've been working on--"
"Oh, ho!" exclaimed the aged inventor with a laugh. "So that's what
you've been tinkering over these last few weeks, eh, Tom? I suspected it
was some new invention, but I didn't suppose it was that. Well, how are
you coming on with it?"
"Pretty good, I think. I've got a new idea for a battery, and I made an
experimental one. I gave it some pretty severe tests, and it worked fine."
"But you haven't tried it out in a car yet, over rough roads, and under
severe conditions have you?"
"No, I haven't had a chance. In fact, when I invented the battery I had
no idea of using it on a car I thought it might answer for commercial
purposes, or for storing a current generated by windmills. But when I read
that account in the papers of the Touring Club, offering a prize for the best
electric car, it occurred to me that I might put my battery into an auto, and
win."
"Hum," remarked Mr. Swift musingly. "I don't take much stock in
electric autos, Tom. Gasolene seems to be the best, or perhaps steam,
generated by gasolene. I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. All the electric
runabouts I ever saw, while they were very nice cars, didn't seem able to
go so very fast, or very far."
"That's true, but it's because they didn't have the right kind of a battery.
You know an electric locomotive can make pretty good speed, Dad. Over
a hundred miles an hour in tests."
"Yes, but they don't run by storage batteries. They have a third rail, and
powerful motors," and Mr. Swift looked quizzically at his son. He loved to
argue with him, for he said it made Tom think, and often the two would
thus thresh out some knotty point of an invention, to the interests of both.
"Of course, Dad, there is a good deal of theory in what I'm thinking
of," the lad admitted. "But it does seem to me that if you put the right kind
TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RUNABOUT or The Speediest Car on the Road
4
of a battery into an automobile, it could scoot along pretty lively. Look
what speed a trolley car can make."
"Yes, Tom, but there again they get their power from an overhead
wire."
"Some of them don't. There's a new storage battery been invented by a
New Jersey man, which does as well as the third rail or the overhead wire.
It was after reading about his battery that I thought of a plan for mine. It
isn't anything like his; perhaps not as good in some ways, but, for what I
want, it is better in some respects, I think. For one thing it can be
recharged very quickly."
"Now Tom, look here," said Mr. Swift earnestly, laying aside his
papers, and coming over to where his son sat. "You know I never interfere
with your inventions. In fact, the more you think of the better I like it. The
airship you helped build certainly did all that could be desired, and--"
"That reminds me. Mr. Sharp and Mr. Damon are out in it now,"
interrupted Tom. "They ought to be back soon. Yes, Dad, the airship Red
Cloud certainly scooted along."
"And the submarine, too," continued the aged inventor. "Your ideas
regarding that were of service to me, and helped in our task of recovering
the treasure, but I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed in the storage
battery. You may get it to work, but I don't believe you can make it
powerful enough to attain any great speed. Why don't you confine yourself
to making a battery for stationary work?"
"Because, Dad, I believe I can build a speedy car, and I'm going to try
it. Besides I want to race Andy Foger, and beat him, even if I don't win the
prize. I'm going to build that car, and it will make fast time."
"Well, go ahead, Tom," responded his father, after a pause. "Of course
you can use the shops here as much as you want, and Mr. Sharp, Mr.
Jackson, and I will help you all we can. Only don't be disappointed, that's
all."
"I won't, Dad. Suppose you come out to my shop and I'll show you a
sample battery I've been testing for the last week. I have it geared to a
small motor, and it's been running steadily for some time. I want to see
what sort of a record it's made."
TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RUNABOUT or The Speediest Car on the Road
5
Father and son crossed the yard, and entered a shop which the lad
considered exclusively his own. There he had made many machines, and
pieces of apparatus, and had invented a number of articles which had been
patented, and yielded him considerable of an income.
"There's the battery, Dad," he said, pointing to a complicated
mechanism in one corner
"What's that buzzing noise?" asked Mr. Swift. "That's the little motor I
run from the new cells. Look here," and Tom switched on an electric light
above the experimental battery, from which he hoped so much. It
consisted of a steel can, about the size of the square gallon tin in which
maple syrup comes, and from it ran two wires which were attached to a
small motor that was industriously whirring away.
Tom looked at a registering gauge connected with it.
"That's pretty good," remarked the young inventor. "What is it,
Tom?" and his father peered about the shop.
"Why this motor has run an equivalent of two hundred miles on one
charging of the battery! That's much better than I expected. I thought if I
got a hundred out of it I'd be doing well. Dad, I believe, after I improve
my battery a bit, that I'll have the very thing I want! I'll install a set of
them in a car, and it will go like the wind. I'll --" Tom's enthusiastic
remarks were suddenly interrupted by a low, rumbling sound.
"Thunder!" exclaimed Mr. Swift. "The storm is coming, and Mr. Sharp
and Mr. Damon in the airship--"
Hardly had he spoken than there sounded a crash on the roof of the
Swift house, not far away. At the same time there came cries of distress,
and the crash was repeated.
"Come on, Dad! Something has happened!" yelled Tom, dashing
from the shop, followed by his parent. They found themselves in the midst
of a rain storm, as they raced toward the house, on the roof of which the
smashing noise was again heard.
TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RUNABOUT or The Speediest Car on the Road
6
CHAPTER II
MR. DAMON'S STEERING
Tom Swift was a lad of action, and his quickness in hurrying out to
investigate what had happened when he was explaining about his new
battery, was characteristic of him. Those of my readers who know him,
through having read the previous books of this series, need not be told this,
but you who, perhaps, are just making his acquaintance, may care to know
a little more about him.
As told in my first book, "Tom Swift and His Motor-Cycle" the young
inventor lived with his father, Barton Swift, a widower, in the town of
Shopton, New York. Mr. Swift was also an inventor of note.
In my initial volume of this series, Tom became possessed of a motor-
cycle in a peculiar way. It was sold to him by a Mr. Wakefield Damon, a
wealthy gentleman who was unfortunate in riding it. On his speedy
machine, which Tom improved by several inventions, he had a number of
adventures. The principal one was being attacked by a number of bad men,
known as the "Happy Harry Gang," who wished to obtain possession of a
valuable turbine patent model belonging to Mr. Swift. Tom was taking it to
a lawyer, when he was waylaid, and chloroformed. Later he traced the
gang, and, with the assistance of Mr. Damon and Eradicate Sampson, an
aged colored man who made a living for himself and his mule, Boomerang,
by doing odd jobs, the lad found the thieves and recovered a motor-boat
which had been stolen. But the men got away.
In the second volume, called "Tom Swift and His Motor-Boat," Tom
bought at auction the boat stolen by, and recovered from, the thieves, and
proceeded to improve it. While he was taking his father out on a cruise for
Mr Swift's health, the Happy Harry Gang made a successful attempt to
steal some valuable inventions from the Swift house. Tom started to trace
them, and incidentally he raced and beat Andy Foger, a rich bully. On their
way down the lake, after the robbery, Tom, his father and Ned Newton,
Tom's chum, saw a man hanging from the trapeze of a blazing balloon
over Lake Carlopa. The balloonist was Mr. John Sharp and he was rescued
TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RUNABOUT or The Speediest Car on the Road
7
by Tom in a thrilling fashion. In his motor-boat, Tom had much pleasure,
not the least of which was taking out a young lady named Miss Mary
Nestor, whose acquaintance he had made after stopping her runaway horse,
which his bicycle had frightened. Tom's association with Miss Nestor
soon ripened into something deeper than mere friendship.
It developed that Mr Sharp, whom Tom had saved from the burning
balloon, was an aeronaut of note, and had once planned to build an airship.
After his recovery from his thrilling experience, he mentioned the matter
to Mr. Swift and his son, with whom he took up his residence. This fitted
right in with Tom's ideas, and soon father, son and the balloonist were
constructing the Red Cloud, as they named their airship. It was finally
completed, as related in "Tom Swift and His Airship," made a successful
trial trip, and won a prize. It was planned to make a longer journey, and
Tom, Mr. Sharp and Mr. Damon agreed to go together. Mr. Damon was an
odd individual, who was continuously blessing some part of his anatomy,
his clothing or some inanimate object but, for all that, he was a fine man.
The night before Tom and his friends started off in their airship, the
Shopton Bank vault was blown open and seventy-five thousand dollars
was taken. Tom and his friends did not know of this, but, no sooner had
the young inventor, Mr. Sharp and Mr. Damon sailed away, than the police
arrived at Mr. Swift's house to arrest them. They were charged with the
robbery, and with having sailed away with the booty.
It appeared that Andy Foger said he had seen Tom hanging around the
bank the night of the robbery, with a bag of burglar tools in his possession.
Search was immediately begun for the airship, the occupants of which
were, meanwhile, speeding on.
Tom and his two friends had trouble. They were nearly burned up in a
forest fire, and were fired upon by a crowd of people with rifles, who,
reading of the bank robbery and the reward offered for the capture of the
thieves, hoped to bring down the airship. The fact that they were fired
upon caused Tom and the two aeronauts to descend to make an
investigation, and for the first time they learned of the bank theft. How
they got track of the real robbers, took the sheriff with them in the airship,
and raided the gang will be found set down at length in the book. Also
TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RUNABOUT or The Speediest Car on the Road
8
how Tom administered well-deserved thrashing to Andy Foger.
Mr. Swift did not accompany his son in the airship, and when asked
why he did not care to make the trip, said he was working on a new type
of submarine boat, which he hoped to enter in the government trials, to
win a prize. In the fourth volume of the series, called "Tom Swift and his
Submarine," you may read how successful Mr. Swift was.
When the submarine, called the Advance, was finished, the party made
a trip to recover three hundred thousand dollars in gold from a sunken
treasure ship, off the coast of Uruguay, South America. They sailed
beneath the seas for many miles, and were in great peril at times. One
reason for this was that a rival firm of submarine builders got wind of the
treasure, and tried to get ahead of the Swifts in recovering it. How Tom
and his friends succeeded in their quest, how they nearly perished at the
bottom of the sea, how they were captured by a foreign war vessel, and
sentenced to death, how they fought with a school of giant sharks and how
they blew up the wreck to recover the money is all told of in the book.
On their return to civilization with the gold, Mr. Swift, Tom, and their
friends deposited the money in the Shopton Bank, where Ned Newton
worked. Ned was a bright lad, but had not been advanced as rapidly as he
deserved, and Tom knew this. He asked his father to speak to the president,
Mr. Pendergast, in Ned's behalf, and, as a result the lad was made assistant
cashier, for the request of a man who controlled a three hundred thousand
dollar deposit was not to be despised.
In building the submarine Tom and his father rented a large cottage on
the New Jersey seacoast, but, on returning from their treasure-quest they
went back to Shopton, leaving the submarine at the boathouse of the shore
cottage, which was near the city of Atlantis. That was in the fall of the year,
and all that winter the young inventor had been busy on many things, not
the least of which was his storage battery. It was now spring, and seeing
the item in the paper, about the touring club prize for an electric auto, had
given him a new idea.
But all thoughts of electric cars, and everything else, were driven from
the mind of the young man, when, with his father, he rushed out to see the
cause of the crash on the roof of the Swift homestead.
TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RUNABOUT or The Speediest Car on the Road
9
"There's something up there, Tom," called his father, as he splashed on
through the rain.
"That's right," added his son. "And somebody, too, to judge by the fuss
they're making."
"Maybe the house has been struck by lightning!" suggested the aged
inventor.
"No, the storm isn't severe enough for that; and, besides, if the house
had been struck you'd hear Mrs. Baggert yelling, Dad. She--"
At that moment a woman's voice cried out:
"Mr. Swift! Tom! Where are you? Something dreadful has happened!"
"There she goes!" remarked Mr. Swift, as he splashed into a mud
puddle.
"Bless my deflection rudder!" suddenly cried a voice from the flat roof
of the Swift house. "Hello! I say, is anyone down there?"
"Yes, we are," answered Tom. "Is that you, Mr. Damon?"
"Bless my collar button! It certainly is."
"Where's Mr. Sharp? I don't hear him."
"Oh, I'm here all right," answered the balloonist. "I'm trying to get the
airship clear of the chimney. Mr. Damon--"
"Yes, I steered wrong!" interrupted the odd man. "Bless my liver pin,
but it was so dark I couldn't see, and when that clap of thunder came I
shifted the deflection rudder instead of the lateral one, and tried to knock
over your chimney."
"Are either of you hurt?" asked Mr. Swift anxiously.
"No, not at all," replied Mr. Sharp. "We were moving slowly, ready for
a landing."
"Is the airship damaged?" inquired Tom.
"I don't know. Not much, I guess," was the answer of the aeronaut.
"I've stopped the engine, and I don't like to start it again until I can see
what shape we're in."
"I'll come up, with Mr. Jackson," called Tom, and he hastily
summoned Garret Jackson, an engineer, who had been in the service of Mr.
Swift for many years. Together they proceeded to the roof by a stairway
that led to a scuttle.
TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RUNABOUT or The Speediest Car on the Road
10
"Is anyone killed?" asked Mrs. Baggert, as Tom hurried up the stairs.
"Don't tell me there is, Tom!"
"Well, I don't have to tell you, for no one is," replied the young
inventor with a laugh. "It's all right. The airship tried to collide with the
chimney, that's all."
He was soon on the large, flat roof of the dwelling, and, with the aid of
lanterns he, the engineer, and Mr. Sharp made a hasty examination.
"Anything wrong?" inquired Mr. Damon, looking out from the cabin
of the Red Cloud where he had taken refuge after the crash, and to get out
of the wet.
"Not much," answered Tom. "One of the forward planes is smashed,
but we can rise by means of the gas, and float down. Is all clear, Mr.
Sharp?"
"All clear," replied the balloonist, for the airship had now been
wheeled back from the entanglement with the chimney.
"Then here we go!" cried Tom, as he and the aeronaut entered the craft,
while Mr. Jackson descended through the scuttle.
There came a fiercer burst to the storm, and, amid a series of dazzling
lightning flashes and the muttering of thunder, the airship rose from the
roof. Tom switched on the search-light, and, starting the big propellers,
guided the craft skillfully toward the big shed where it was housed when
not in use.
With the grace of a bird it turned about in the air, and settled to the
ground. It was the work of but a few minutes to run it into the shed. Then
they all started for the house.
"Bless my umbrella! How it rains!" cried Mr. Damon, as he splashed
on through numerous puddles. "We got back just in time, Mr. Sharp."
"Where did you go?" asked the lad.
"Why we took a flight of about fifty miles and stopped at my house in
Waterfield for supper. Were you anxious about us?"
"A little when it began to storm," replied Tom.
"Anything new since we left?" asked Mr. Sharp, for it was the custom
of himself, or some of his friends, to take little trips in the airship. They
thought no more of it than many do of going for a short spin in an
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TOMSWIFTANDHISELECTRICRUNABOUTorTheSpeediestCarontheRoad1TOMSWIFTANDHISELECTRICRUNABOUTorTheSpeediestCarontheRoadVICTORAPPLETONTOMSWIFTANDHISELECTRICRUNABOUTorTheSpeediestCarontheRoad2CHAPTERITOMHOPESFORAPRIZE"Father,"exclaimedTomSwift,lookingupfromapaperhewasreading,"IthinkIcanwinthatprize!""Whatpr...
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