at? You didn't make any conditions while we were talking,"
said the scientist.

"Yes, I said I'd go if Tom Swift did."

"Oh, yes. You did say that. But I don't call that a condition, for of
course Tom Swift will go. Now let me tell you something more than I
could impart over the telephone.

"Soon after I called you up, Tom--and it was quite a coincidence that
it should have been at a time when you had just finished my magazine
article. Soon after that, as I was saying, I arranged to come on to
Shopton. And now I'm glad we're all here together.

"But how comes it, Ned Newton, that you are not in the bank?"

"I've left there," explained Ned.

"He's now general financial man for the Swift Company," Tom explained.
"My father and I found that we could not look after the inventing and
experimental end, and money matters, too, and as Ned had had
considerable experience this way we made him take over those worries,"
and Tom laughed genially.

"No worries at all, as far as the Swift Company is concerned," returned
Ned.

"Well, I guess you earn your salary," laughed Tom. "But now, Professor
Bumper, let's hear from you. Is there anything more about this idol of
gold that you can tell us?"

"Plenty, Tom, plenty. I could talk all day, and not get to the end of
the story. But a lot of it would be scientific detail that might be
too dry for you in spite of this excellent lemonade."

Between them Koku and Eradicate had managed to make a pitcher of the
beverage, though Mrs. Baggert, the housekeeper, told Tom afterward that
the two had a quarrel in the kitchen as to who should squeeze the
lemons, the giant insisting that he had the better right to "punch"
them.

"So, not to go into too many details," went on the professor, "I'll
just give you a brief outline of this story of the idol of gold.

"Honduras, as you of course know, is a republic of Central America, and
it gets its name from something that happened on the fourth voyage of
Columbus. He and his men had had days of weary sailing and had sought
in vain for shallow water in which they might come to an anchorage.
Finally they reached the point now known as Cape Gracias-a-Dios, and
when they let the anchor go, and found that in a short time it came to
rest on the floor of the ocean, some one of the sailors--perhaps
Columbus himself--is said to have remarked:

"'Thank the Lord, we have left the deep waters (honduras)' that being
the Spanish word for unfatho