ce of gross carelessness on his
part, and I don't care to consider for a son-in-law a young man as
careless as that!"

"Oh, Daddy!" expostulated Mary.

"Now, now! Tut, tut!" exclaimed Mr. Nestor. "It isn't your fault, Mary,
but this Tom Swift must be taught a lesson. He was careless, if nothing
worse, and, for all he knew, there might have been some stray bits of
dynamite in that packing box. It won't do! It won't do! I'll write him
a letter, and give him a piece of my mind!"

And in spite of all his wife and his daughter could say, Mr. Nestor did
write Tom a scathing letter. He accused him of either perpetrating a
joke, or of being careless, or both, and he intimated that the less he
saw of Tom at the Nestor home hereafter the better pleased he would be.

"There! I guess that will make him wish he hadn't done it!" exclaimed
Mr. Nestor, as he called a messenger and sent the letter to Tom's house.

Mary and her mother did not know the contents of the note, but Mary
tried to get Tom on the wire and explain. However, she was unable to
reach him, as Tom was on the point of leaving.

The messenger, with Mr. Nestor's letter, arrived just as our hero was
receiving the late afternoon mail from the postman, and just as Tom and
Koku were getting in an automobile to leave for the depot.

"Good-bye, Dad!" Tom called. "Good-bye, Mrs. Baggert!" He thrust Mr.
Nestor's letter, unopened, together with some other mail matter, which
he took to be merely circulars, into an inner pocket, and jumped into
the car.

Tom and Koku were off on the first stage of their journey.

Chapter VII

Off for Peru

"Well, Tom Swift, you're on time I see," was Mr. Job Titus' greeting,
when our hero, and Koku, the giant, alighted from a taxicab in New
York, in front of the hotel the contractor had appointed as a meeting
place.

"Yes, I'm here."

"Did you have a good trip?"

"Oh, all right, yes. Nothing happened to speak of, though we were
delayed by a freight wreck. Has Mr. Damon got here yet?"

"Not yet, Tom. But I had a message saying he was on his way. Come on up
to the rooms I have engaged. Hello, what's all the crowd here for?"
asked the contractor in some surprise, for a throng had gathered at the
hotel entrance.

"I expect it's Koku they're staring at," announced Tom, and the giant
it was who had attracted the attention. He was carrying his own big
valise, and a small steamer trunk belonging to Tom, as easily as though
th