Appleton, Victor – Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders

“Say, for the love of rice-pudding! will you get down to brass tacks and strike a trial balance? What are you talking of, anyhow? Is it a joke?”

“A joke?”

“Yes. What you just read in that magazine which seems to cause you so much excitement.”

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“Well, it may be a joke; and yet the professor seems very much in earnest about it,” replied Tom. “It certainly is one wonderful story!”

“So you said before. Come on — the `fillium’ is busted. Splice it, or else put in a new reel and on with the show. I’d like to know what’s doing. What professor are you talking of?”

“Professor Swyington Bumper.”

“Swyington Bumper?” and Ned’s voice showed that his memory was a bit hazy.

“Yes. You ought to remember him. He was on the steamer when I went down to Peru to help the Titus Brothers dig the big tunnel. That plotter Waddington, or some of his tools, dropped a bomb where it might have done us some injury, but Professor Bumper, who was a fellow passenger, on his way to South America to look for the lost city of Pelone, calmly picked up the bomb, plucked out the fuse, and saved us from bad injuries, if not death. And he was as cool about it as an ice-cream cone. Surely you remember!”

“Swyington Bumper! Oh, yes, now I remember him,” said Ned Newton. “But what has he got to do with a wonderful story? Has he written more about the lost city of Pelone? If he has I don’t see anything so very wonderful in that.”

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“There isn’t,” agreed Tom. “But this isn’t that,” and Tom picked up the magazine and leafed it to find the article he had been reading.