audience beheld two grotesque creatures, standing upright, their attached fingers and toes giving them an uncanny human appearance.
When the Fat Men began to walk, the onlookers grinned at their peculiar waddling gait. Reaching the tank, which was filled with salt water, Tom and Bud jumped in. They bobbed around for several seconds, then began to descend.
The Fat Men were ready for the test
84 TOM SWIFT AND HIS JETMARINE
The lid of the tank was closed and Baker slowly turned on the pressure. The watchers, recalling Tom’s frightful experience before in this same tank, waited intently. Baker, kneeling at a glass peephole in the lid, turned on the underwater light and watched. The boys were slowly walking around on the bottom, apparently untroubled as the pressure increased beyond what anyone had ever withstood and remained alive.
“Where’s the oxygen hose?” Sandy asked.
“Everything’s inside the Fat Man,” Baker replied. “It’s not dependent on outside help. But you’ll see air bubbles come out of the top.”
“Tell me something more about the principle of the escape suit,” Mrs. Swift said, smiling proudly at another of her son’s accomplishments.
“The lithium hydroxide,” said Baker, “is taking care of what the boys are exhaling. And that excellent gadget by which Tom is getting oxygen from the water is a great invention, harder to perfect than the sub itself. If anything should happen to the jetmarine, they would be able to live in the suits a long time.”
The period for the test was up and Baker slowly reduced the pressure.