“Nothing. He took my chair away and when I wanted it back he said I’d have to fight for it and----”
“And you did,” commented Jack with a dry smile. “Well, Sam, my advice is to forget it. If you think you’ve been injured I’m sorry, but Ned Nevins appears to me to be an inoffensive sort of a lad, quiet and unassuming.”
“Oh, he just puts on that to fool you,” muttered Sam.
At this juncture, Jack was called away by one of the machinists and Sam, with a very bad grace, turned to some unfinished work at his lathe. He was still engaged at this when Ned happened to pass by.
“I got your note last night, Hinkley,” he said. “Why didn’t you give it to me in person instead of slipping it under the door?”
Sam made a sound resembling “G-r-r-r-r-r” and went on with what he was doing.
“As I suppose you know,” resumed Ned, “we shall see a good deal of each other in the future. Why can’t we be friends?”
Sam’s face contorted with rage as he dropped the tool he had been using and faced round on Ned.
“Because I hate you, that’s why. You’re nothing but an interloper and a faker and Jack Chadwick will find it out before very long.”
“Why?” asked Sam, surprised at the other’s calm, even tone. His outburst appeared to have no effect whatever upon the lad he had desired to impress with his enmity.
“Because I am afraid you are going to be disappointed,” and with these words Ned passed on.
The next few weeks were busy ones about the workshop of the Boy Inventors, but gradually, almost imperceptibly, the electric hydroaeroplane began to take shape. The enthusiasm of the boys infected the workmen and even Sam Hinkley appeared to work with more than usual fervor.
Briefly described, the hydroaeroplane portion of the craft consisted of two twin boats, each about forty feet in length and constructed of a special aluminum alloy jointed together by strong vanadium connections. Between the pair of boats, which will be more fully described later, the storage tanks, which were the novel feature of the Jeptha Nevins craft, were placed.
In the center of each of the boats was a small raised cabin, the cabins being connected by a hollow passageway. At either end of the craft the wings, of biplane pattern, were attached. The wing spread was ninety-five feet which, with the craft’s electric engines of enormous power, gave the giant air-craft a lifting capacity of two thousand pounds.