“You’ll have to excuse me, Chow, but I can’t make it out so well. I left my sunglasses home this morning.”
Bud roared with laughter, but Chow took the ribbing in his usual good-natured fashion.
“You know what this hydrophobiated hoss thief
A PERILOUS EXPERIMENT 37
was tellin’ me?” he remarked, jerking his thumb in Bud’s direction.
“Sounded like something about a pair of boots,” replied Tom cautiously.
“You figgerin’ out somethin’ special in that line?”
“Well, if we make this expedition to the South Pole that we’re planning, we’ll probably have to wear heated boots.”
Chow gaped in astonishment. “Well, brand my radarscope!” Then he recovered and grinned a bit uncertainly. “Oh, I ketch on. A feller can’t leave footprints on ice nohow!”
Tom laughed, then said, “Seriously, Chow, this trip will be quite an undertaking. You’d better start making a list of the food supplies you’ll want to take along.”
Bud winked. “To add to the stewed whale blubber and penguin soup you’ll probably be serving us,” he said. Bud was referring to Chow’s well-known weakness for dreaming up exotic dishes of his own concoction.
“You jest leave all that to me, son,” the cook said reassuringly. “I reckon I can figger out some tasty dishes even fer a place like the South Pole.” He then inquired how the expedition would travel.
“We’ll take the Sky Queen,” Tom told him, referring to his first great invention, the three-decked Flying Lab. “And probably a couple of cargo planes.
38 TOM SWIFT AND HIS ATOMIC BLASTER
So you’ll have a good galley to cook in and plenty of room for groceries.”