Tom Swift and His Wireless Message | Page 7

The cook who just left
went away because I asked her to make some apple turnovers. Some of
the girls who are coming are very fond of them."
"So am I," spoke Tom, with a smile.
"Are you, indeed? Then, if the cook I hope to get now will make them,
I'll invite you over to have some, and--also meet my friends."
"I'd rather come when just you, and the turnovers and the cook are
there," declared Tom, boldly, and Mary, with a blush, made ready to
leave the electric car.
"Thank you," she said, in a low voice.
"If I can't help you select a cook," went on Tom, "at least let me call
and take you home when you have engaged one."
"Oh, it will be too much trouble," protested Miss Nestor.
"Not at all. I have only to send a message, and get some piano wire, and
then I'll call back here for you. I'll take you and the new cook back
home flying."
"All right, but don't fly so fast. The cook may get frightened, and leave
before she has a chance to make an apple turnover."

"I'll go slower. I'll be back in fifteen minutes," called Tom, as he swung
the car out away from the curb, while Mary Nestor went into the
intelligence office.
Tom wrote and sent this message to Mr. Hostner Fenwick, of
Philadelphia:
"Will come on to-morrow in my aeroplane, and aid you all I can. Will
not promise to make your electric airship fly, though. Father sends
regards."
"Just rush that, please," he said to the telegraph agent, and the latter,
after reading it over, remarked:
"It'll rush itself, I reckon, being all about airships, and things like that,"
and he laughed as Tom paid him.
Selecting several sizes of piano wire of great strength, to use as extra
guy-braces on the Butterflv, Tom re-entered his electric car, and
hastened back to the intelligence office, where he had left his friend. He
saw her standing at the front door, and before he could alight, and go to
her, Miss Nestor came cut to meet him.
"Oh, Tom!" she exclaimed, with a little tragic gesture, "what do you
think?"
"I don't know," he answered good-naturedly. "Does the new cook
refuse to come unless you do away with apple turnovers?"
"No, it isn't that. I have engaged a real treasure, I'm sure, but as soon as
I mentioned that you would take us home in the electric automobile,
she flatly refused to come. She said walking was the only way she
would go. She hasn't been in this country long. But the worst of it is
that a rich woman has just telephoned in for a cook, and if I don't get
this one away, the rich lady may induce her to come to her house, and
I'll be without one! Oh, what shall I do?" and poor Mary looked quite
distressed.

"Humph! So she's afraid of electric autos; eh?" mused Tom. "That's
queer. Leave it to me, Mary, and perhaps I can fix it. You want to get
her away from here in a hurry; don't you?"
"Yes, because servants are so scarce, that they are engaged almost as
soon as they register at the intelligence office. I know the one I have
hired is suspicious of me, since I have mentioned your car, and she'll
surely go with Mrs. Duy Puyster when she comes. I'm sorry I spoke of
the automobile."
"Well, don't worry. It's partly my fault, and perhaps I can make amends.
I'll talk to the new cook," decided the young inventor.
"Oh, Tom, I don't believe it will do any good. She won't come, and all
my girl friends will arrive shortly." Miss Nestor was quite distressed.
"Leave it to me," suggested the lad, with an assumed confidence he did
not feel. He left the car, and walked toward the office. Entering it, with
Miss Nestor in his wake, he saw a pleasant-faced Irish girl, sitting on a
bench, with a bundle beside her.
"And so you don't want to ride in an auto?" began Tom.
"No, an' it's no use of the likes of you askin' me, either," answered the
girl, but not impudently. "I am afeered of thim things, an' I won't work
in a family that owns one."
"But we don't own one," said Mary.
The girl only sniffed.
"It is the very latest means of traveling," Tom went on, "and there is
absolutely no danger. I will drive slowly."
"No!" snapped the new cook.
Tom was rather at his wits' ends. At that moment the telephone rang,
and Tom and Mary, listening, could hear the proprietress of the
intelligence office talking to Mrs. Duy Puyster over the wire.

"We must get her away soon," whispered Mary,