"On one condition!" put in the eccentric man.

"What's that? You didn't make any conditions
while we were talking," said the scientist.

"Yes, I said I'd go if Tom Swift did."

"Oh, yes. You did say that. But I don't call
that a condition, for of course Tom Swift will go.
Now let me tell you something more than I could
impart over the telephone.

"Soon after I called you up, Tom--and it was
quite a coincidence that it should have been at a
time when you had just finished my magazine
article. Soon after that, as I was saying, I
arranged to come on to Shopton. And now I'm
glad we're all here together.

"But how comes it, Ned Newton, that you are
not in the bank?"

"I've left there," explained Ned.

"He's now general financial man for the Swift
Company," Tom explained. "My father and I
found that we could not look after the inventing
and experimental end, and money matters, too,
and as Ned had had considerable experience this
way we made him take over those worries," and