Tom Swift and His Airship Part 7

"Steer to one side!" called the balloonist.

Tom tried, but found that the helm had become jammed. The horizontal rudder would not work, and the craft was rushing nearer and nearer, every minute, to the pile of brick and mortar.

"We're going to have a collision!" shouted Tom. "Better shut off the power!"

The two propellers were whirling around so swiftly that they looked like blurs of light. Mr. Sharp came rushing forward, and Tom relinquished the steering wheel to him. In vain did the aeronaut try to change the course of the airship. Then, with a shout to Tom to disconnect the electric switch, the man turned off the power from the motor.

But it was too late. Straight at the tower rushed the Red Cloud, and, a moment later had hit it a glancing blow, smashing the forward propeller, and breaking off both blades. The nose of the aluminum gas container knocked off a few bricks from the tower, and then, the ship losing way, slowly settled to the flat roof of the building.

"We're smashed!" cried Tom, with something like despair in his voice.

"That's nothing! Don't worry! It might be worse! Not the first time I've had an accident. It's only one propeller, and I can easily make another," said Mr. Sharp, in his quick, jerky sentences. He had allowed some of the gas to escape from the container, making the ship less buoyant, so that it remained on the roof.

The aeronaut and Tom looked from the windows of the car, to note if any further damage had been done. They were just congratulating themselves that the rudder marked the extent, when, from a scuttle in the roof there came a procession of young ladies, led by an elderly matron, wearing spectacles and having a very determined, bristling air.

"Well, I must say, this is a very unceremonious proceeding!" exclaimed the spectacled woman. "Pray, gentlemen, to what are we indebted for this honor?"

"It was an accident, ma'am," replied Mr. Sharp, removing his hat, and bowing. "A mere accident!"

"Humph! I suppose it was an accident that the tower of this building was damaged, if not absolutely loosened at the foundations. You will have to pay the damages!" Then turning, and seeing about two score of young ladies behind her on the flat roof, each young lady eying with astonishment, not unmixed with admiration, the airship, the elderly one added: "Pupils! To your rooms at once! How dare you leave without permission?"

"Oh, Miss Perkman!" exclaimed a voice, at the sound of which Tom started. "Mayn't we see the airship? It will be useful in our natural philosophy study!"

Tom looked at the young lady who had spoken. "Mary Nestor!" he exclaimed.

"Tom--I mean Mr. Swift!" she rejoined. "How in the world did you get here?"

"I was going to ask you the same question," retorted the lad. "We flew here."

"Young ladies! Silence!" cried Miss Perkman, who was evidently the princ.i.p.al of the school. "The idea of any one of you daring to speak to these--these persons--without my permission, and without an introduction! I shall make them pay heavily for damaging my seminary,"

she added, as she strode toward Mr. Sharp, who, by this time, was out of the car. "To your rooms at once!" Miss Perkman ordered again, but not a young lady moved. The airship was too much of an attraction for them.

Chapter 6

Getting Off The Roof

For a few minutes Mr. Sharp was so engrossed with looking underneath the craft, to ascertain in what condition the various planes and braces were, that he paid little attention to the old maid school princ.i.p.al, after his first greeting. But Miss Perkman was not a person to be ignored.

"I want pay for the damage to the tower of my school," she went on. "I could also demand damages for trespa.s.sing on my roof, but I will refrain in this case. Young ladies, will you go to your rooms?" she demanded.

"Oh, please, let us stay," pleaded Mary Nestor, beside whom Tom now stood. "Perhaps Professor Swift will lecture on clouds and air currents and--and such things as that," the girl went on slyly, smiling at the somewhat embarra.s.sed lad.

"Ahem! If there is a professor present, perhaps it might be a good idea to absorb some knowledge," admitted the old maid, and, unconsciously, she smoothed her hair, and settled her gold spectacles straighter on her nose. "Professor, I will delay collecting damages on behalf of the Rocksmond Young Ladies Seminary, while you deliver a lecture on air currents," she went on, addressing herself to Mr. Sharp.

"Oh, I'm not a professor," he said quickly. "I'm a professional balloonist, parachute jumper. Give exhibitions at county fairs. Leap for life, and all that sort of thing. I guess you mean my friend. He's smart enough for a professor. Invented a lot of things. How much is the damage?"

"No professor?" cried Miss Perkman indignantly. "Why I understood from Miss Nestor that she called some one professor."

"I was referring to my friend, Mr. Swift," said Mary. "His father's a professor, anyhow, isn't he, Tom? I mean Mr. Swift!"

"I believe he has a degree, but he never uses it," was the lad's answer.

"Ha! Then I have been deceived! There is no professor present!" and the old maid drew herself up as though desirous of punishing some one.

"Young ladies, for the last time, I order you to your rooms," and, with a dramatic gesture she pointed to the scuttle through which the procession had come.

"Say something, Tom--I mean Mr. Swift," appealed Mary Nestor, in a whisper, to our hero. "Can't you give some sort of a lecture? The girls are just crazy to hear about the airship, and this ogress won't let us.

Say something!"

"I--I don't know what to say," stammered Tom.

But he was saved the necessity for just then several women, evidently other teachers, came out on the roof.

"Oh, an airship!" exclaimed one. "How lovely! We thought it was an earthquake, and we were afraid to come up for quite a while. But an airship! I've always wanted to see one, and now I have an opportunity.

It will be just the thing for my physical geography and natural history cla.s.s. Young ladies, attention, and I will explain certain things to you."

"Miss Delafield, do you understand enough about an airship to lecture on one?" asked Miss Perkman smartly.

"Enough so that my cla.s.s may benefit," answered the other teacher, who was quite pretty.

"Ahem! That is sufficient, and a different matter," conceded Miss Perkman. "Young ladies, give your undivided attention to Miss Delafield, and I trust you will profit by what she tells you.

Meanwhile I wish to have some conversation concerning damages with the persons who so unceremoniously visited us. It is a shame that the pupils of the Rocksmond Seminary should be disturbed at their studies.

Sir, I wish to talk with you," and the princ.i.p.al pointed a long, straight finger at Mr. Sharp.

"Young ladies, attention!" called Miss Delafield. "You will observe the large red body at the top, that is--"

"I'd rather have you explain it," whispered Mary Nestor to Tom. "Come on, slip around to the other side. May I bring a few of my friends with me? I can't bear Miss Delafield. She thinks she knows everything. She won't see us if we slip around."

"I shall be delighted," replied Tom, "only I fear I may have to help Mr. Sharp out of this trouble."

"Don't worry about me, Tom," said the balloonist, who overheard him.

"Let me do the explaining. I'm an old hand at it. Been in trouble before. Many a time I've had to pay damages for coming down in a farmer's corn field. I'll attend to the lady princ.i.p.al, and you can explain things to the young ones," and, with a wink, the jolly aeronaut stepped over to where Miss Perkman, in spite of her prejudice against the airship, was observing it curiously.

Glad to have the chance to talk to his young lady friend, Tom slipped to the opposite side of the car with her and a few of her intimate friends, to whom she slyly beckoned. There Tom told how the Red Cloud came to be built, and of his first trip in the air, while, on the opposite side, Miss Delafield lectured to the entire school on aeronautics, as she thought she knew them.

Mr. Sharp evidently did know how to "explain" matters to the irate princ.i.p.al, for, in a short while, she was smiling. By this time Tom had about finished his little lecture, and Miss Delafield was at the end of hers. The entire school of girls was grouped about the Red Cloud, curiously examining it, but Mary Nestor and her friends probably learned more than any of the others. Tom was informed that his friend had been attending the school in Rocksmond since the fall term opened.

"I little thought, when I found we were going to smash into that tower, that you were below there, studying," said the lad to the girl.

"I'm afraid I wasn't doing much studying," she confessed. "I had just a glimpse of the airship through the window, and I was wondering who was in it, when the crash came. Miss Perkman, who is nothing if not brave, at once started for the roof, and we girls all followed her. However, are you going to get the ship down?"

"I'm afraid it is going to be quite a job," admitted Tom ruefully.

"Something went wrong with the machinery, or this never would have happened. As soon as Mr. Sharp has settled with your princ.i.p.al we'll see what we can do."

"I guess he's settled now," observed Miss Nestor. "Here he comes."