hey
have not succeeded. To condense air and to carry it about so that
propellers might revolve in it, would be out of the question."

"You think so, Tom?" asked Mr. Damon.

"I'm sure of it!"

"Oh, dear! That's too bad. Bless my overshoes, but I thought I had a
new idea. Well, you ought to know. So Damon's Whizzer goes on the scrap
heap before ever it's built. Well, we'll say no more about it. You
ought to know best, Tom. I wasn't thinking of it so much for myself as
for you. I thought you'd like some new idea to work on."

"Much obliged, Mr. Damon, but I have a new idea," said Tom.

"You have? What is it? Tell me--that is, if it isn't a secret," went on
the eccentric man, as much delighted over Tom's new plan as he had been
over his own Whizzer, doomed to failure so soon.

"It isn't a secret from you," said Tom. "I got the idea while I was
riding with Mary. I wanted to talk to her--to tell her not to jump out
when we had a little accident--but I had trouble making myself
understood because of the noise of the motor."

"They do make a great racket," conceded Mr. Damon. "But I don't suppose
anything can be done about it."

"I don't see why there can't!" exclaimed Tom. "And that's my new
idea--to make a silent aircraft motor--perhaps silent propeller blades,
though it's the motor that makes the most noise. And that's what I'm
going to do--invent a silent aeroplane. Not because I want so much to
talk when I take passengers up in the air, but I believe such a motor
would be valuable, especially for scouting planes in war work. To go
over the enemy's lines and not be heard would be valuable many times.

"And that's what I'm going to do--work on a silent motor for Uncle Sam.
I've got the germ of an idea and now--"

"Excuse me," said a voice behind Mr. Damon and Tom, and, turning, the
young inventor beheld the form of Mr. Peton Gale, president of the
Universal Flying Machine Company.

CHAPTER VI

MAKING PLANS

Tom Swift had drawn pencil and paper from his pocket, and, as he and
Mr. Damon were sitting on the steps of one of the shops, the young
inventor was about to demonstrate by a drawing part of his new project,
when the interruption came in the shape of one of the men who had, an
hour before, made a business offer to Tom.

"Excuse me," went on Mr. Peton Gale, "but Mr. Ware and I got to talking
it over on our way to the station--the matter of having you in our
company, Mr. Swift--and we concluded tha