The three entered an automobile, and were soon being driven to the inventor’s home.  A little later he led them out to a big shed which occupied nearly all of a large lot, in back of Mr. Fenwick’s house.

“Does it take up all that room?” asked Tom.

“Oh, yes, the whizzer is pretty good size.  There she is!” cried Mr. Fenwick proudly, as he threw open the doors of the shed, and Tom and Mr. Damon, locking in, saw a large triplane, with a good-sized gas bag hovering over it, and a strange collection of rudders, wings and planes sticking out from either side.  Amidships was an enclosed car, or cabin, and a glimpse into it served to disclose to the young inventor a mass of machinery.

“There she is!  That’s the whizzer!” cried Mr. Fenwick, with pride in his voice.  “What do you think of her, Tom Swift?”

Tom did not immediately answer.  He looked dubiously at the electric airship and shrugged his shoulders.  It seemed to him, at first glance, that, it would never sail.

CHAPTER VII

MAKING SOME CHANGES

“Well, what do you think of it?” asked Mr. Fenwick again, as Tom walked all about the electric airship, still without speaking.

“It’s big, certainly,” remarked the lad.

“Bless my shoe horn!  I should say it was!” burst out Mr. Damon.  “It’s larger than your Red cloud, Tom.”

“But will it go?  That’s what I want to know,” insisted the inventor.  “Do you think it will fly, Tom?  I haven’t dared to try it yet, though a small model which I made floated in the air for some time.  But it wouldn’t move, except as the wind blew it.”

“It would be hard to say, without a careful examination, whether this large one will fly or not,” answered Tom.

“Then give it a careful examination,” suggested Mr. Fenwick.  “I’ll pay you well for your time and trouble.”

“Oh if I can help a fellow inventor, and assist in making a new model of airship fly, I’m only too glad to do it without pay,” retorted Tom, quickly.  “I didn’t come here for that.  Suppose we go in the cabin, and look at the motor.  That’s the most important point, if your airship is to navigate.”

There was certainly plenty of machinery in the cabin of the whizzer.  Most of it was electrical, for on that power Mr. Fenwick intended to depend to sail through space.  There was a new type of gasolene engine, small but very powerful, and this served to operate a dynamo.  In turn, the dynamo operated an electrical motor, as Mr. Fenwick had an idea that better, and more uniform, power could be obtained in this way, than from a gasolene motor direct.  One advantage which Tom noticed at once, was that the whizzer had a large electric storage battery.

This was intended to operate the electric motor in case of a break to the main machinery, and it seemed a good idea.  There were various other apparatuses, machines, and appliances, the nature of which Tom could not readily gather from a mere casual view.