第2章

"Yes, they could do that, but usually they scatter it so far, and the ocean currents so cover it with sand, that it is impossible ever to get it again.I admit that if a wreck is blown apart a man in a diving bell can perhaps get a small part of it.But the limitations of a diving bell are so well recognized that several inventors have tried adjusting movable arms to the bell, to be operated by the man inside.""Did they work?" asked Ned.

"After a fashion, yes.But I never heard of any case where the gold and silver recovered paid for the expenses of making the bell and sending men down in it.For it takes the same sort of outfit to aid the man in the diving bell as it does the diver in his usual rubber or steel suit.Air has to be pumped to him, and he has to be lowered and raised.""Well, isn't there any way of getting at this gold on the floor of the ocean?" asked Ned, his enthusiasm a little cooled by the practical "cold water" Tom had thrown.

"Oh, yes, of course there is, in a way," was the answer of the young inventor."Don't you remember how my father and I, with Mr.Damon and Captain Weston, went in our submarine, the Advance, and discovered the wreck of the Boldero?""I do recall that," admitted Ned.

"Well," resumed Tom, "there was a case of showing how much trouble we had.An ordinary diving outfit never would have answered.We had to locate the wreck, and a hard time we had doing it.Then, when we found it, we had to ram the old ship and blow it apart before we could get inside.

Even after that we just happened to discover the gold, as it were.I'm only mentioning this to show you it isn't so easy to get at the wealth under the sea as writers in Sunday newspaper supplements think it is.""I believe you, Tom.And yet it seems a shame to have all those millions going to waste, doesn't it?" And Ned spoke as a banker and financial man, who is not happy unless money is earning interest all the while.

"Well, a billion of dollars is a lot," Tom admitted."And when you think of all that have been sunk, say even in the last hundred years, it amazes one.But still, all the gold and silver was hidden in the earth before it was dug out, and now it's only gone back where it came from, in a way.We got along before men dug it out and coined it into money, and I guess we'll get along when it's under water.No use worrying over the ocean treasures, as far as I'm concerned.""You're a hopeless proposition!" laughed Ned."You'd never make a banker, or a Napoleon of finance.""That's why my father and I got you to look after our financial affairs," and Tom smiled."You're just the one--with your interest-bearing mind--to keep us off the shoals of business trouble.""Yes, I suppose I can do that, while you and your father go on inventing giant cannons, great searchlights, submarines, and airships," conceded Ned."But this, to me, did look like an easy way of making money.""How's that, Ned?" asked Tom, a new note coming into his voice."Were you thinking of going to Japan and taking a hand in the undersea search?""No.But stock in this company is being sold, and shareholders stand to win big returns--if the wrecks are come upon.""That's just it!" exclaimed Tom."If they find the wrecks! And let me tell you, Ned, that there's a mighty big 'if' in it all.Do you realize how hard it is to find anything on the ocean, to say nothing of something under it?""I hadn't thought of it."

"Well, you'd better think of it.You know on the ocean sailors have tolocate a certain imaginary position by calculation, using the sun and stars as guides.Of course, they have navigation down pretty fine, and a good pilot can get to a place on the surface of the ocean and meet another craft there almost as well as you and I can make an appointment to meet at Main and Broad streets at a certain hour.

"But lots of times there are errors in calculations or a storm comes up hiding the sun and stars, and, instead of a captain getting to where he wants to, he's anywhere from one to a hundred miles out.Now the location of Broad and Main Streets doesn't change even in a storm.

"And I'm not saying that a location on an ocean changes.I'm only saying that the least disturbance or error in calculation makes it almost impossible to find the exact spot.And if it's that hard on the surface, where you can see what you're doing, how much harder is it in regard to something on the bottom of the sea? So don't take any stock in these ocean treasure recovering companies.They may not be fakes, but they're mighty uncertain.""Oh, I don't know that I was really going to buy any stock in this Japanese concern, Tom.I only thought it would be interesting to think about.And perhaps you might sell them a submarine or some of your diving apparatus.""Nothing doing, Ned.We've got other plans, my father and I.There's that new tractor for use in the big wheat-growing belt, to say nothing of--"Tom's remarks were interrupted by voices outside his office door.One voice, in particular, rose above the others.It said:

"No can go in! The Master he am busily! No can go in!""Nonsense, Koku!" exclaimed a man, and at the sound of his voice Tom and Ned smiled."Nonsense! Of course I can go in! Why, bless my watch fob, I must go in! I've got the greatest proposition to lay before Tom Swift that he ever heard of! There's at least a million in it! Let me pass, Koku!""Mr.Damon!" murmured Tom Swift."I wonder what he has on his mind nowAs he spoke the door opened rather violently and a short, stout man, evidently much excited, fairly burst into the room, followed, moresedately, by a stranger.