CHAPTER I
A BREAKDOWN
"Well, Ned, are you ready?"
"Oh, I suppose so, Tom. As ready as I ever shall be."
"Why, Ned Newton, you\'re not getting afraid; are you? And after
you\'ve been on so many trips with me?"
"No, it isn\'t exactly that, Tom. I\'d go in a minute if you didn\'t have this
new fangled thing on your airship. But how do you know how it\'s going to
work--or whether it will work at all? We may come a cropper."
"Bless my insurance policy!" exclaimed a man who was standing near
the two lads who were conversing. "You\'d better keep near the ground,
Tom."
"Oh, that\'s all right, Mr. Damon," answered Tom Swift. "There isn\'t
any more danger than there ever was, but I guess Ned is nervous since our
trip to the underground city of gold."
"I am not!" indignantly exclaimed the other lad, with a look at the
young inventor. "But you know yourself, Tom, that putting this new
propeller on your airship, changing the wing tips, and re-gearing the motor
has made an altogether different sort of a craft of it. You, yourself, said it
wasn\'t as reliable as before, even though it does go faster."
"Now look here, Ned!" burst out Tom. "That was last week that I said
it wasn\'t reliable. It is now, for I\'ve tried it out several times, and yet, when
I ask you to take a trip with me, to act as ballast--"
"Is that all you want me for, Tom, to act as ballast? Then you\'d better
take a bag of sand--or Mr. Damon here!"