And while this is being done I am going to ask your patience for a little while—­my old readers, I mean—­while I tell my new friends, who have never yet met Tom Swift, something about him.

Mr. Swift spoke truly when he said his son seemed to do nothing but seek adventures and invent flying machines.  Of the latter the lad had a goodly number, some of which involved new and startling ideas.  For Tom was a lad who “did things.”

In the first volume of this series, entitled “Tom Swift and His Motor Cycle,” I told you how he became acquainted with Mr. Damon.  That eccentric individual was riding a motor cycle, when it started to climb a tree.  Mr. Damon was thrown off in front of Tom’s house, somewhat hurt, and the young inventor took him in.  Tom and his father lived in the village of Shopton, New York, and Mr. Swift was an inventor of note.  His son followed in his footsteps.  Mrs. Swift had been dead some years, and they had a good housekeeper, Mrs. Baggert.

Another “member” of the family was Eradicate Sampson, a colored man of all work, who said he was named “Eradicate” because he “eradicated” the dirt.  He used to do odd jobs of whitewashing before he was regularly employed by Mr. Swift as a sort of gardener and watchman.

In the first book I told how Tom bought the motor cycle from Mr. Damon, fixed it up, and had many adventures on it, not the least of which was saving some valuable patent models of his father’s which some thieves had taken.

Then Tom Swift got a motor boat, as related in the second volume of the series, and he had many exciting trips in that craft.  Following that he made his first airship with the help of a veteran balloonist and then, not satisfied with adventures in the air, he and his father perfected a wonderful submarine boat in which they went under the ocean for sunken treasure.

The automobile industry was fast forging to the front when Tom came back from his trip under water, and naturally he turned his attention to that.  But he made an electric car instead of one that was operated by gasolene, and it proved to be the speediest car on the road.

The details of Tom Swift and his wireless message will be found in the book of that title.  It tells how he saved the castaways of Earthquake Island, and among them was Mr. Nestor, the father of Mary, a girl whom Tom thought—­but there, I’m not going to be mean, and tell on a good fellow.  You can guess what I’m hinting at, I think.

It was when Tom went to get Mary Nestor a diamond ring that he fell in with Mr. Barcoe Jenks, who eventually took Tom off on a search for the diamond makers, and he and Tom, with some friends, discovered the secret of Phantom Mountain.

One would have thought that these adventures would have been enough for Tom Swift, but, like Alexander, he sighed for new worlds to conquer.  How he went to the caves of ice in search of treasure, and how his airship was wrecked is told in the eighth volume of the series, and in the next is related the details of his swift sky-racer, in which he and Mr. Damon made a wonderfully fast trip, and brought a doctor to Mr. Swift in time to save the life of the aged inventor.