houghts had turned to evenings just like
this one with the family and perhaps a close friend like Jerry
gathered on the porch after dinner.

Rick, Scotty, and Barbara Brant had only recently returned from the
South Pacific where they had vacationed aboard the trawler _Tarpon_
and had solved the mystery of _The Phantom Shark_. Barby had gone off
to summer boarding school in Connecticut a few days later. Chahda, the
Hindu boy who had been with the Brants since the Tibetan radar relay
expedition described in _The Lost City_, had said good-bye to the
group at New Caledonia and had returned to India. The scientists,
Zircon, Weiss, and Gordon, were away doing research.

Suddenly Rick chuckled. "Speaking of adventure, I'll bet the biggest
adventure Barby had on our whole trip to the Pacific was eating
_rosette saute_ at the governor's in Noumea."

"What's that?" Jerry asked.

"Bat," Scotty replied. "A very large kind of fruit bat. Barby thought
it was wonderful until she found out what it was."

"I should think so!" Mrs. Brant exclaimed.

"It tasted good," Rick said. "Something like chicken livers." He
grinned. "Anyway, I sympathized with Barby. I felt kind of funny
myself when I found out what it was."

Hartson Brant, an older edition of his athletic son, looked at the boy
reflectively. He knocked ashes from his pipe. "Seems to me you've been
pretty quiet since you got back, Rick. Lost your taste for excitement?
Or are you working on something?"

"Working," Rick said. "We scientists must never rest. We must labor
always to push back the frontiers of ignorance." He put a hand on his
heart and bowed with proper dramatic modesty. "I am working on an
invention that will startle the civilized world."

"We will now bow our heads in reverent silence while the master tells
all," Scotty intoned.

"I know," Jerry guessed. "You're working on a radar-controlled lawn
mower so you can cut the grass while you sit on the porch."

"That's too trivial for a junior genius like Rick," Scotty objected.
"He's probably working on a self-energizing hot dog that lathers
itself with mustard, climbs into a bun, and then holds a napkin under
your chin while you eat it."

"Not a bad idea," Rick said soberly. "But that isn't it."

"Of course not," Hartson Brant put in. "You see, I happen to know what
it is, due to a little invention of my own--an electronic mind
reader."

Scotty gulped. "You didn't tell Mom what happened to those two pie