o say that the
monkeys would throw the cocoanuts down to you from the trees. That
breaks the hard shells you see, and all you have to do is to take
out the meat, and drink the milk. Then the monkeys throw you down a
palm leaf fan to cool yourself off, while you're eating it. Oh, I
tell you, Rad, South America is the place to go to have a good
time."

"I believe you, Massa Tom. When do we-all start?"

"Pretty soon now."

"An' what all am yo' gwine arter, Massa Tom?"

The young inventor thought a moment. In times past he had not
hesitated to confide in his colored helper, but of late years
Eradicate had become somewhat childish, and he talked more than was
necessary. Tom wondered whether it would be safe to trust the giant
secret to him. After a moment's thought he realized that it would
not be. But, at the same time, he knew that if he did not give some
kind of an answer Eradicate would become suspicious, and that would
be worse. The colored helper had been with Tom on too many trips not
to know that his master never went without some object.

"Well, Rad, we're after big game this time," Tom said. "I don't know
what it will be that we'll get, whether animals or plants, and--"

"Oh, I knows, Massa Tom. Yo'-all means dem orchard plants that lib
on air--dem big orchard plants." Eradicate meant orchids, of which
many rare and beautiful kinds are found in South America.

"Yes, Rad, I guess we will get some big orchids," agreed Tom.

"An' I shorely will help climb de trees arter 'em. Or maybe we kin
git de monkeys to frow em down, same as dey will de cocoanuts."

"Maybe, Rad. Well, now go ahead and nail up the rest of these boxes.
We want to get started as soon as we can," and the colored man got
busy, murmuring from time to time something about oranges and
bananas and cocoanuts.

Everyone was occupied in getting matters in shape for the trip to
South America, even Mr. Swift laying aside his work on his pet
invention--a gyroscope--while he helped his son. And had Tom not
been quite so engrossed with his preparations he might have gone
about town more, in which case he would have learned something that
might have saved him and the others considerable trouble and no
little danger. And this fact was that Andy Foger had been in Shopton
several times lately.

After the trouble which the red-haired bully and his father caused
Tom and his friends on their trip to the city of gold, Mr. Foger
moved away from Shopton. He