Part 17 (1/2)
”Bless my insurance policy, I should say so!” exclaimed Mr Damon ”It was certainly neat work, Toht combination,” admitted Tom, and he felt justifiable pride in his achieve it all, man, it is so!” declared Ned ”That fire went out as if sent for by a special delivery telegraive a hurry-up performance in another locality Look, there's hardly any smoke even!”
This was so, as the three occupants of the rapidlyairshi+p could see when Toain over the almost destroyed structure He had waited until it was al his chemicals, as he wished to make the test hard and conclusive Now the fire was out except for a few s up here and there, away frouess she doesn't need a second dose,” observed Tom, when he sa effective had been his treatment of the fire ”I had an additional batch of chemicals on hand, in case they were needed,” he added, and he tapped some unused bombs at his feet
”I call this a pretty satisfactory test,” declared Ned ”If you want to for apparatus on the uarantee to underwrite the securities”
”Hardly that yet,” said Toh ”Now that I have ot to rig up an airshi+p that will be especially adapted for fighting fires in sky-scrapers”
”What more do you want than this?” asked Ned, as his chum prepared to descend in the speedydevice, for one thing This worked all right But I want one that is ht, so I can see where I a one!” cried Ned, recalling the i the Canadian slers
”No But one patterned after that” Tom answered
”Bless my candlestick!” exclaiht at a fire, Toh at a blaze, anyhow?”
”No,” answered the young inventor, as hecity fire departht work and where there is thick s a sky-scraper blaze froht, I'll have need of more illumination than coht to know You've hted with Toratulations fro members of the Shopton fire departhty clever piece of work, Tom Swift!” declared a deputy chief ”Of course on't have much use for any such apparatus here in Shopton, as we haven't any big buildings But in New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh and other cities--why, it will be just what they need, to o so far fro over in Newmarket--the Landmark I happen to own a little stock in the corporation that put that up, along with other buildings, and I' apparatus”
”Thank you But you don't need to go to that trouble,” asserted Tom
”My idea isn't to have every sky-scraper equipped with an airshi+p extinguisher”
”No? What then?” asked Mr Daht to be one, or perhaps two, in a big city like New York,” Toh, for it isn't likely that there would be two big fires in the tall building section at the same time, and an airshi+p could easily cover the distance between tidely separated blazes But if I can perfect this machine so it will be available for fires out of the reach of apparatus on the ground, I'll be satisfied”
”You'll do it, Tom, don't worry about that!” declared the deputy chief
”I never saw a slicker piece of work than this!”
And that was the verdict of all who had witnessed the perfor test and the knowledge that he had perfected the uisher--the chemical combination--Tom Sas now able to devote his attention to the ”frills” as Ned called the a searchlight to his airshi+p andthe che blaze
Tom Swift owned several airshi+ps, and he finally selected one of not too great size, but very powerful, that would hold three and, if necessary, four persons This was rebuilt to enable a considerable quantity of the fire-extinguishi+ng liquid to be stored in the under part of the somewhat limited cockpit
Thisup a quantity of the extinguisher, using the secret foran attaching a searchlight to his ”cloud fire-engine,” as Koku called it