Appleton, Victor – Tom Swift Jr 04 – And His Giant Robot

The evening’s gay festivities helped Tom to forget the strange chase to the plant. But later that night, recalling the incident, he began to think about the advisability of having not one but two giant robots. Then if anything happened to the one now nearly complete, he would have another to take its place. The following morning he started to work on a second giant robot. This one would run on a different frequency as a double precaution. As soon as work on it was well under way, the young inventor turned his attention to the problem of constructing a new relotrol. During the following two days he discarded one idea after another. Hard at work in his laboratory, Tom became so absorbed that eating and sleeping were almost forgotten.

Chow was worried. “That young genius sure burns himself up like a roarin’

prairie fire,” he said to himself, gazing fondly at the youth who sat at a drawing board, a plastic-hooded shade over his eyes. “Brand my mashed mongoose fritters, I jest got to make him eat… . Tom,” he said aloud.

Tom looked up from his workbench. “I wonder if a high-frequency band-pass filter would work?” he was thinking aloud.

Chow sighed. “You ain’t payin’ a coyote’s-sized 72 TOM SWIFT AND HIS GIANT ROBOT

attention to me,” he complained. The cook scratched at the stubble of his beard and squinted into the glare of the table lamp. “What you tryin’ to do, Tom?”

A voice from the doorway answered. It was Bud Barclay with a cup of hot chocolate from the cafeteria.

“It’s simple, Chow. Our master electrician here is perfecting a method to stifle random noise.”