185CHAPTER XXIIBROADCASTING MARVELS
The remainder of the week sped quickly by, and almost before the boys realized it the holiday had arrived. Larry spent the morning at Bob’s house, where he watched Bob and Joe working on the new set, and kept his promise to ask questions.
“It doesn’t do me much good, though,” he said, fairly puzzled at last. “That’s about the most mysterious looking box of tricks that I’ve ever had the hard luck to look at. What are all those dials and knobs for? Do you keep your money in there, or what?”
“You must think they are combination locks,” laughed Bob. “This knob here controls a condenser, and this one a transformer.”
“But how do you know what to do with them?” asked the bewildered Larry. “How do you know which one to turn and which one to leave alone?”
“You don’t,” laughed Bob. “You may have an idea about where they should be placed, but it’s different every evening.”186
“Yes, and during the evening, too,” added Joe. “You have to keep adjusting all the time to get the best results.”
“Well, if it depended on me, I’m afraid I’d only get the worst results,” said Larry. “It all looks terribly complicated to me.”
“You don’t have to worry much about it, anyway,” said Joe. “All you have to do is whistle into the transmitter, and it’s up to us to hear you. We have to do all the work.”
“It’s a lucky thing for me that it is that way,” said Larry. “If I had to learn all about radio before I could give my act, I’d probably starve to death first.”
“Radio is just like everything else,” said Bob. “It looks very mysterious and difficult to an outsider, but when you get into it a little way and understand the rudiments, it begins to look a lot simpler. It wouldn’t take you very long to catch on to it. Especially a smart lad like you,” he added, with a grin.
“Cut out the comedy,” said Larry. “Any time I get a compliment from you or Joe, I know there’s a nigger in the woodpile somewhere.”
“The trouble with you is, you’re too modest,” said Joe. “When we do say something good about you, you think we’re only kidding.”
“I don’t think—I know,” replied Larry, grinning. “I suppose, though, that radio must be187pretty easy, or you fellows wouldn’t know so much about it.”
“That remark has all the appearance of a dirty dig,” said Bob. “But I suppose we can’t land on him until he gets entirely well, can we, Joe?”
“No, let him live a little while longer,” replied his friend. “We’ll get even for that knock, though, Larry, my boy.”
“I won’t lie awake at night worrying about it, anyway,” replied Larry. “But I’m not going to interfere with your work any more. Just go ahead as though I weren’t here, and I’ll try to learn something by watching what you do.”
Bob and Joe worked steadily then until Mrs. Layton called to them to come up to lunch.
“Toot! toot!” went Larry, imitating faithfully a factory whistle blowing for twelve o’clock. “Time to knock off, you laborers. If you work any longer I won’t let you belong to the union any more.”
“No danger of that,” said Bob. “I’ve been feeling hungry ever since ten o’clock, so I’m not going to lose any time now. Come on up and we’ll see what mother’s got for us.”
They found a lunch waiting for them that would have made a dyspeptic hungry, and they attacked it in a workmanlike manner that drew an approving comment from Mrs. Layton.
“I declare it’s some satisfaction to get a meal188for you boys,” she declared. “You certainly eat as though you enjoyed it.”
“There’s no camouflage about that, Mother; wedoenjoy it,” answered Bob.
“We wouldn’t be human if we didn’t enjoy it, that’s fairly certain,” said Larry. “The meals at the hotel are pretty good, but they’re not in the same class with this lunch at all.”
“I know they have a reputation for setting a good table there,” said Mrs. Layton. “I hope you fare as well in the city. You’ll board there, I suppose, won’t you?”
“Yes, I expect to,” said Larry. “Mr. Allard, the manager, recommended me to a good place near the station, and I guess they won’t let me starve to death there.”
“Let us hope not,” smiled Mrs. Layton. “Any time you are in Clintonia, we’d be very glad to have you visit us, you know. I suppose Bob has told you that, though.”
“I certainly did!” exclaimed her son. “I have a hunch that after eating a while in boarding houses a good home-cooked meal must be a welcome change.”
“I’ll say it is,” assented Larry. “But there are one or two good restaurants fairly near the station, anyway, so in case I get tired of the food at the boarding house, I can switch to a restaurant for a while.”189
“That sounds like jumping from the frying pan into the fire,” grinned Joe.
“I suppose it is something along that line,” assented Larry, with a rueful laugh. “But what is a poor fellow to do?”
“I suppose it can’t be helped,” assented Bob, as he finished his dessert. “But now, fellows, there doesn’t seem to be anything more to eat, so I guess we’d better be moving if we’re going to catch the two o’clock train.”
“That shows you how much gratitude I can expect from him,” said Mrs. Layton, laughingly appealing to the others. “‘Eat and run’ seems to be his motto these days.”
“Well, there’s always so much to be done, it would keep anybody on the jump,” protested Bob. “I don’t seem to be fading away under the strain, though, do I?”
“No. And while your appetite continues the way it is, I guess I shan’t need to worry about you,” replied Mrs. Layton.
Larry and Joe said good-by to their hostess, and then all three boys started for the station. They had good fortune in catching the trolley that ran to the railroad station, and just had time to get their tickets before the train pulled in.
It was more than a two-hours’ run to the point where they must change cars, but it seemed to them that they had hardly gotten settled in their190seats before it was time to get off. Larry told them many comical stories of his experiences while traveling from town to town and funny incidents that had occurred at rehearsals and during performances.
“You get pretty tired of traveling all the time, though,” Larry remarked at length. “This engagement you fellows and Mr. Brandon have gotten for me is certainly a relief. I’d be mighty glad to have it, even if I hadn’t been hurt. I’ve had enough of jumping around all over the country to suit me for a while.”
“I’ll bet it does get mighty tiresome,” assented Bob, as the boys rose to get out. “But here we are, and as the train doesn’t go any further, I suppose we might as well get off.”
“That isn’t a bad idea,” said Joe. “I suppose there’s no use trying to persuade the conductor to go on a little further.”
“I don’t imagine you’d better even think of it,” said Larry. “I’ve got a hunch that he’d only get peeved if you did.”
“Well, then, I’ll take your advice,” grinned Joe.
As they emerged from the terminal into the street at their final destination, Joe asked:
“But how are we going to find this place, Larry? Do you know the way?”
“No, but I know how to find somebody who191does,” replied Larry, and he signaled to a taxicab driver.
“Nix, Larry, nix!” expostulated Bob. “We can get there on the trolleys. You’d better save your cash.”
“You fellows blew me to a taxi ride when I landed in Clintonia the last time, so I’m going to do the same for you,” said Larry, obstinately. “No use in kicking now, so just forget it.”
During this brief dialogue the taxi had approached them, and now stopped as the driver swung open the door.
“Hop in, fellows,” directed Larry, and then he gave the driver directions to drive to the big broadcasting station.
With a jerk and a rattle they were off, and there ensued an exciting ten minutes as the taxicab scooted through the traffic, shooting across streets, and missing collisions by the narrowest of margins a dozen times in the course of the brief journey. The boys held on tight to prevent being thrown from their seats, and they all heaved sighs of relief when at length the vehicle came to a sudden halt in front of the big broadcasting station.
“Whew!” exclaimed Bob. “I don’t know what this will cost you, Larry, but whatever it is, you get your money’s worth of excitement, anyway.192Taking a ride in one of those things is like going out to commit suicide.”
“That’s nothin’,” grinned the driver, who had overheard this remark. “We was takin’ it easy all de way. If you guys had been in a hurry, now, I might have shown you a little speed.”
“Well, you did pretty well, as it was,” said Bob. “You were in a hurry, if we weren’t.”
Larry paid the man, and he was off at top speed and had disappeared around a corner before Larry had fairly put his change away.
“That must be a great life, driving a taxi all day in a big city,” said Larry. “But let’s go in, and see if we can find the boss. I hope he’ll act tip nice and show you fellows the whole works. I’ll go around with you and try to look wise, but I won’t have any idea of what it’s all about.”
Entering the office, they had little difficulty in seeing the manager, and he readily consented to have the boys look over the station, turning them over to an assistant, as he was too busy to take them around himself.
Mr. Reed, the assistant, did not appear particularly pleased with his assignment at first, but when he found that the boys were well grounded in radio, his attitude changed.
“I get tired of showing people around who don’t know a thing about radio, and do nothing but ask fool questions,” he explained. “But when I get193some one who knows the subject and can understand what I’m showing him, that’s a different matter.”
He showed them over the sending station from the studio to the roof. The boys listened with the keenest interest as he described to them the methods by which the broadcasting was carried on, which every night delighted hundreds of thousands of people within range of the station.
In a little room close to the roof they saw the sending apparatus which really did the work. There was a series of five vacuum bulbs through which the current passed, receiving a vastly greater amplification from each, until from the final one it climbed into the antenna and was flung into space. To the casual onlooker they would have seemed like simply so many ordinary electric bulbs arranged in a row and glowing with, perhaps, unusual brilliance.
But the boys knew that they were vastly more than this. Where the electric light tube would have contained only the filament, these tubes at which they were looking contained also a plate and a grid—the latter being that magical invention which had worked a complete revolution in the science of radio and had made broadcasting possible. From the heated filament electrons were shot off in a stream toward the plate, and by the wonder-working intervention of the grid were194amplified immeasurably in power and then passed on to the other tube, which in turn passed it on to a third, and so on until the sound that had started as the ordinary tone of a human voice had been magnified many thousands of times. This little series of tubes was able to make the crawl of a fly sound like the tread of an elephant and there is no doubt that a time will come when through this agency the drop of a pin in New York City can be heard in San Francisco.
The boys were so fascinated with the possibilities contained in the apparatus that it was only with reluctance that they left the roof and went to the studio. This they found to be a long, rather narrow room, wholly without windows, and with the floors covered with the heaviest of rugs. The reason for this, as their guide explained, was to shut out all possible sound except that which it was desired to transmit over the radio.
“What is the idea of having no windows?” asked Bob.
“So there shall be no vibration from the window panes,” replied Mr. Reed. “I tell you, boys, this broadcasting hasn’t been a matter of days, but is the development of months of the hardest kind of work and experiment. We have had to test, reject, and sift all possible suggestions in order to reach perfection. I don’t mean by that to say that we have reached it yet, but we’re on195the way. New problems are coming up all the time, and we are kept busy trying to solve them.
“It seems a simple thing,” he went on, “to talk or sing into that microphone,” pointing to a little disk-like instrument about the height of a man’s head. “But even there the least miscalculation may wholly spoil the effect of the speech or the music. Now, in a theater, the actor is at least twenty feet or so from the nearest of his audience and the sounds that he makes in drawing in his breath are not perceptible. If he stayed too close to the microphone, however, that drawing in of breath, or some other little peculiarity of his delivery, would be so plainly heard that it would interfere with the effect of his performance. So, with certain instruments. A flute, for instance, has no mechanical stops, so a flute player can stand comparatively near the microphone. The player of a cornet, however, must stand some distance back or else the clicking of the stops of his instrument will interfere with his music. These are only a few of the difficulties that we meet and have to guard against. There are dozens of others that require just as much vigilance to guard against in order to get a perfect performance. It’s a pleasure to explain these things to you, boys, for you catch on quickly.”
“We’re a long way from being experts,” said Bob, “but we’ve done quite a good deal of radio196work and built several sets of our own, so we can at least ask intelligent questions.”
“Well, fire away, and I’ll try to answer them,” replied Mr. Reed. “You may be able to stick me, though.”
He said this as a joke, but before they had completed a tour of the building the boys had asked him some posers that he was at a loss to answer.
“I almost think you fellows should be taking me around,” he said at last. “Blamed if I don’t think you know as much as I do about it.”
197CHAPTER XXIIITHE FIRST VENTURE
“They’re regular sharks, those boys,” said Larry, who was thoroughly enjoying Mr. Reed’s discomfiture. “I think they’d be able to stick Mr. Edison, I’ll be blest if I don’t.”
“Nonsense,” laughed Bob. “We’re only asking about things we don’t understand ourselves. You know the did saying, ‘a fool can ask more questions than a wise man can answer.’”
“Hey, there, speak for yourself!” exclaimed Joe. “You may be a fool, but don’t class me under that heading.”
“I was only speaking figuratively, as the profs say,” laughed Bob. “I don’t want you to take me too literally, of course.”
“All I’ve got to say is, that you’re both pretty well up on radio,” said Mr. Reed. “Are you a shark too, Larry?”
“Not I,” answered Larry. “I’ve been trying to learn something about it since I met Bob and Joe here, but I can’t say that I’ve made much progress.198Besides, you can’t do much learning in a hospital,” he added, with a rueful laugh.
“It isn’t what you would call an ideal place,” admitted Mr. Reed. “But now that you’re working here, you ought to pick it up pretty soon.”
“I’m going to make a real try at it now,” promised Larry. “It’s a shame to be so ignorant about the business that’s giving you a living.”
“Yes, but I don’t see where our knowledge of radio is bringing us much cash,” said Joe.
“How about that hundred and fifty dollars we won between us in prizes?” Bob reminded him. “That was quite a little cash, wasn’t it?”
“That’s a long time ago, though,” returned Joe. “I wish I knew some way to pick up a little extra change now. Christmas is not very far off, and heaven knows how I’m going to buy anybody any present.”
“Can you do anything in the way of a song or a recitation?” asked Mr. Reed. “I know Mr. Allard needs one or two short bits to fill out the programme to-night, but I don’t suppose you could do anything of that sort, could you?”
“I’m afraid not,” replied Joe. “I know two or three recitations that I learned for the elocution class, but I’m afraid that’s about the full extent of my entertaining power. If I tried to sing, folks would think that some accident had happened to their apparatus.”199
“A good recitation or two might be just what the boss is looking for,” returned Mr. Reed. “It Couldn’t do any harm to ask him about it, anyway. What is your specialty, Layton?”
“There’s no such thing,” laughed Bob. “As an entertainer, I’d be a terrible frost.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” said the other. “Suppose we look up Mr. Allard, anyway, and see what he has to say.”
“I’ll try anything once,” said Bob. “I suppose it can’t do any harm to try, anyway.”
“If you can get away with it, why not pick up a few dollars?” asked Larry. “It isn’t like facing a big audience, you know. The audience is there, all right, but you don’t see them, and it’s easier to forget about them than in a theater.”
“I wouldn’t try it for a farm in a theater,” said Joe. “But I guess I could work up nerve enough to talk into that sending apparatus. It won’t be as bad as reciting in the auditorium at high school, at any rate.”
“Don’t bank too much on it,” warned their conductor. “Mr. Allard may not think well of the plan, or he may have found some one else by this time.”
“I’ll be satisfied either way,” said Bob, philosophically. “I’d like to make a little money, all right; but, on the other hand, I’m beginning to get200stage fright already. If Mr. Allard turns us down it will be a relief, after all.”
But the manager, when interviewed, seemed relieved at the prospect of having their services.
“I think I can use you both very nicely this evening,” he said. “Of course, I’ll have to hear your stuff before I can tell. Suppose you let us hear one or two of your recitations, Mr. Atwood.”
“All right,” grinned Joe. “You’ll probably give me the hook before I get through, though; but you can’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“We’ll take a chance,” smiled the manager. “Do your worst.”
Thus exhorted, Joe recited a humorous piece he had learned recently for delivery in the elocution class, and he recited it very well, too. When he had finished Mr. Allard called for more, and Joe obliged with the only other selection in his repertoire.
“That’s first rate,” said the manager, when he had finished. “I think that ought to go all right. I think I’ll give you ten or fifteen minutes on the bill. Now, how about you, Mr. Layton? What’s your specialty?”
“I don’t own such a thing,” grinned Bob. “I know one piece that I learned for elocution, the same as Joe, but you wouldn’t want two of the same variety on the bill.”201
“No, that’s true,” agreed Mr. Allard. “Let’s see, now,” and he thought a minute or two.
“How would this do?” he exclaimed at length. “We’ve got all sorts of books here with jokes and riddles in them. Suppose we pick out a few good conundrums, and you can learn them and the answers between now and seven o’clock. Then, right at the beginning of the bedtime stuff, you give the riddles, and we’ll announce that the answers aren’t to be given until the very end of the performance. That will keep them guessing all through it, and keep them interested. Then at the end you can give the answers. How does that strike you?”
“I’m game,” replied Bob, grinning. “I guess if I bone down to it I can learn a few by then.”
“You won’t even have to memorize them, if you don’t want to,” said Mr. Allard. “You can read them right off if you’d rather. Your audience won’t be able to see what you’re doing, you know.”
“That would probably be better,” agreed Bob. “Then there won’t be any chance of my forgetting the answers. Think of how tough it would be on the kids if I gave them a riddle and then forgot the answer. That would be a terrible trick to play on them.”
“Well, you can suit yourself about that,”202returned Mr. Allard. “It’s almost six o’clock now, so perhaps you’d better go out and get a bite to eat right now. I’ll pick out a few good conundrums, and you’d better get back as soon as you can and study them up a bit.”
“All right,” said Bob. “We’ll make it snappy.”
He and Joe and Larry went out and had a quick meal at the nearest restaurant.
“You fellows have broken into the entertaining game with your usual speed,” remarked Larry. “Who would have imagined this morning that you would be on the broadcasting programme this evening?”
“We wouldn’t have been, one time out of a hundred,” answered Bob. “If one of the regulars hadn’t been sick, we never would have gotten a look in.”
“‘It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good,’” quoted Joe. “We’ll make our car fare out of this, and something over. It’s lucky I happened to speak as I did to Mr. Reed.”
“But say!” exclaimed Bob, struck by a sudden thought. “Won’t Jimmy and Herb be knocked silly when they hear our voices this evening? They won’t be able to believe their ears.”
“You said it,” declared Joe. “But the worst of it is, we won’t be there to see their faces at the time. I’d give the evening’s profits to see them then.”203
“It will be a scream, all right,” agreed Larry, with a chuckle. “You two will have it all over all the other radio fans in Clintonia when you get back. They’ll be green with envy.”
“I guess it will make them sit up and take notice,” assented Bob. “Just make out Lon Beardsley won’t be sore. This will be a terrible blow to him.”
“It’s a good thing it isn’t the other way around,” said Joe. “If it were Lon who was on the broadcasting programme, we’d never hear the last of it. You’d be hearing about it ten years from now.”
The three friends finished their meal and returned to the broadcasting station, where Mr. Allard was waiting for Bob with the riddles that he had selected.
“Here are a few funny ones,” he said. “You can practice up on the delivery of them, and Larry will give you some pointers about the best way to say them. I don’t imagine you’ll have any trouble when the time comes.”
204CHAPTER XXIVWINNING OUT
“It seems to me he takes a lot for granted,” said Bob, after the manager had left the room. “How does he know that both of us won’t get rattled right in the middle of the thing and ball up the whole programme?”
“I guess it’s because he’s heard something about both you and Joe from Mr. Brandon, and he’s pretty sure you’ll come up to the scratch,” said Larry. “That’s the way I figure it out, anyway.”
“Well, we’ll do the best we can to live up to our reputation, if that’s the case,” said Bob. “I’ll read these things aloud the way I think they should go, Larry, and you correct me if I’m wrong.”
“Go ahead,” replied Larry. “You’ve been telling me so much about radio that I ought to be willing to tell you something about how to put a joke over.”
Bob settled down to his task in earnest then,205and for an hour rehearsed the jokes with Larry, who drilled him in the most effective way to tell them to advantage.
“There!” exclaimed Larry, at the end of that time. “I think you ought to get by all right now, Bob. You’re doing fine.”
“Well, if they don’t like me, I can’t help it,” said Bob. “At any rate, they won’t be able to throw any dead cats at me. That’s one big advantage that radio entertainers have.”
“That’s true enough,” laughed Larry, “although I hadn’t thought about it before. Maybe I’d have had a poor pussy cat wrapped about my neck before this if I’d been doing my act in a regular theater.”
“Nonsense!” replied Bob. “Nobody threw anything at you when you were acting in a regular theater, did he?”
“No,” admitted Larry. “That is, nothing except big bunches of American Beauty roses,” he hastily added.
“Oh, of course, that’s understood,” gibed Joe. “I suppose you had to hire a big truck every evening to cart them away.”
“Yes, every evening,” grinned Larry. “And the applause——good gracious! The people for blocks around used to complain about it.”
“You don’t get much applause now,” laughed Bob. “How does it seem to perform for the benefit206of a telephone transmitter instead of an audience?”
“It never bothered me much,” replied Larry. “It seems to be pretty hard for some of the actors, though, especially the comedians. When they spring a funny joke they’re used to hearing their audience laugh, and when they don’t hear anything, they get peeved sometimes. They can’t get used to the blank silence after their best efforts.”
“I can easily understand how it would have that effect,” said Bob. “It might save them a lot of trouble, though. Take the case of a black-face artist. He wouldn’t need to put on any make-up at all, if he didn’t want to.”
“But if they don’t, they don’t feel natural, and it’s apt to spoil their act. An actor is pretty temperamental, you know.”
“Well, I’m beginning to feel that way myself,” sighed Joe. “I wish it were time for us to spring our stuff on an unsuspecting public and get it over with. It must be pretty near time for the first number now, isn’t it?”
“It sure is,” answered Larry. “We’d better go on up to the transmitting room. The worst crime a public performer can commit is to be late, you know.”
“And to think that I’m the poor fellow that’s supposed to open the show!” exclaimed Bob.207
“My, I’ll be as glad to get it over with as you will, Joe.”
“That’s saying a mouthful,” replied his friend. “Oh, what a relief it will be!”
“If the audience can stand it, you two ought to be able to,” said Larry, cruelly. “Quit your worrying.”
“I guess if the audience can stand you, it won’t mind us,” returned Bob, giving Larry a friendly poke in the ribs. “Guess that will hold you a little while, old timer.”
Before Larry could think of a suitable retort they had entered the transmitting room, and he had to postpone his reply for the time being.
Mr. Allard was already there.
“How do you feel?” he asked them, in greeting. “Probably a trifle nervous?”
“Just a little bit,” Bob admitted. “I think we’ll make out all right, though.”
“Good!” replied the manager. “Don’t get rattled, and you’ll go over all right. From what Mr. Brandon has told me, you don’t either of you rattle easily, though.”
“We’re ready any time you are, sir,” was Bob’s comment.
“All right, then,” said Mr. Allard, crisply. “It’s time now, Morton,” addressing the announcer. “You can go ahead and announce Layton’s act.”208
This the announcer did, and then, tense with excitement but thoroughly master of himself, Bob stepped to the transmitter and propounded the first of his conundrums. With book in hand, Larry stood at his elbow to prompt him in case he forgot anything, but his friendly services were not needed. Bob went through the whole list without a mistake and with no fumbling, speaking clearly and distinctly into the transmitter. Although he could not see his audience, he nevertheless sensed the listening thousands, and felt the lift and exhilaration that come to the successful entertainer. His part in the programme was short, a scant ten minutes, but he enjoyed every minute of it.
When he had asked the last riddle, he stepped back, and mopped big drops of perspiration from his face.
“Whew!” he exclaimed. “I’m glad that’s over, although it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.”
“You’ve got to go all through it again when you give the answers,” Larry reminded him, cruelly.
“I guess I can stand it,” said Bob. “Did I do it all right?”
“Sure you did,” they all assured him. “It was good work.”
In a little while the time came for Joe to give209his recitations, and he, too, did good work. It was easy to see that the manager was pleased with both of them, and, indeed, he did not hesitate to say so.
“If you fellows didn’t live so far away, I’d be glad to make you a regular part of the programme,” he told them later. “You both have a good delivery, and I can see that Brandon was right when he said you didn’t lack nerve. It’s too bad you don’t live in this town.”
“I don’t think we could do much along that line just now, anyway,” said Bob, much pleased. “Between high school and building radio sets we don’t have much time left over. We appreciate your giving us a chance on the bill to-night, though. We never dreamed of such a thing when we left the house this morning.”
“I can’t wait to get back to Clintonia to see what Herb and Jimmy have to say,” remarked Joe. “I’ll bet their eyes are sticking out now like a crab’s.”
The boys then said good-night to Mr. Allard and Larry, and took a somewhat hurried departure, as they had very little time left in which to make the last train for Clintonia.
Meantime, Herb and Jimmy had been treated to the surprise of their lives. Shortly after supper Jimmy had whistled the familiar call in front of Herb’s house, and when his friend had emerged210had invited him to come to his house that evening.
“You know I’ve got my set rigged up now,” he said, “the one that I entered for the Ferberton prize. It didn’t win the prize, but it’s a pretty good set all the same. There’s a good radio programme on for this evening, and I suppose you want to hear it as much as I do.”
“Yes, I certainly do,” answered Herb. “Besides, if we hear Larry, we’ll know that the three of them arrived at the other end on time. It will be almost as good as having them right here with us.”
“Get your coat on, then, and we’ll be going,” said Jimmy. “It’s not so far from seven o’clock, now.”
Herb ran back into the house, and, emerging shortly afterward, joined his friend, and they set out for Jimmy’s house.
“Conditions ought to be ideal for radio to-night,” Herb remarked, as they walked along. “It’s clear as a bell. There won’t be enough static to-night to bother any one.”
“So much the better,” said Jimmy. “That set of mine doesn’t get very good results when the static is bad. I thought it was the real thing once, but compared with the sets we’ve made since, I can see where it might be a lot better.”
“Well, there aren’t many things that are so good that they can’t be improved,” remarked211Herb. “I suppose even if I set out to make a perfect set, I might fall a little short of the mark somewhere.”
“That seems almost impossible, but of course you ought to know,” replied Jimmy, with a grin,
“I only wish we had our set finished that we’re working on now,” said Herb. “Then we ought to get real results.”
“It won’t take us so very long now,” returned Jimmy. “Most of the hard work is done, and all we have to do now is to assemble it, I guess we can get busy at that pretty soon now.”
“The sooner the better,” answered Herb. “It seems to me that we’ve been at it an awfully long while.”
“Not so long when you consider all the work that there is to a set like that,” said Jimmy. “But here we are, and I’m beginning to feel hungry again, although it isn’t very long since I had supper. I think I’ll hunt around in the kitchen and see if I can’t find a few doughnuts. I’m pretty sure that there are some left in the crock.”
“I don’t see how there can be, if you knew they were there,” laughed Herb. “But I hope you do find some. Your mother’s doughnuts have a reputation, you know.”
“We’ll go up to my room first, and then I’ll have a look,” said Jimmy.
Herb had hardly gotten his coat off before212Jimmy returned with several golden brown doughnuts.
“Here we are,” he said, triumphantly. “Now to enjoy the radio!”
Herb had brought a pair of ear phones with him, and he and Jimmy connected their phones in series, so that they could both listen at the same time.
They had hardly got settled when they heard the resonant tones of the announcer.
“Mr. Robert Layton will ask a number of conundrums, the answers to come later.” So spoke the announcer.
Herb and Jimmy gazed at each other open-mouthed.
“Wh-what did he say?” gasped Jimmy, at length. “Did you hear it the same as I did, Herb?”
“He said Robert Layton, all right!” exclaimed Herb. “What do you suppose——” But here he was interrupted by the well known voice of their friend.
“Give me a pencil!” exclaimed Herb. “I’ll guess those before the answers come, or die trying. We can’t let Bob get away with this altogether.”
“I should say not!” agreed Jimmy, as Herb started scribbling furiously. “I can’t believe yet213that it’s really Bob talking. How do you suppose he ever got on the programme?”
Herb shook his head without stopping his writing, and at last had all the riddles written down.
“Never mind the rest of the programme,” he said. “We’ll try to solve these things first.”
But while they were still struggling to find answers to the knotty riddles, they nearly went over backward in their chairs as another familiar name sounded in their ears. The announcer was giving Joe’s name this time, and all Herb and Jimmy could do was to sit and look at each other and mutter inarticulately as Joe recited his selections. When they were over, both boys took off their head phones and gazed solemnly at each other.
“Can you beat it?” asked Herb at length, in a bewildered way.
“Nope,” responded Jimmy. “I’m not even going to try. Just think of those two Indians actually getting on a broadcasting programme! I’m knocked so hard that I’ll have to eat another doughnut to set me straight again. Finish ’em up, Herb.”
And Herb “finished ’em up” while they both ruminated on the incomprehensible vagaries of fate.
“We’ve got to go over and see ’em do it,” declared Jimmy.214
“Right you are,” returned his chum. “I won’t believe it till I see it with my own eyes.”
They saw it with their own eyes a week later when the radio boys gave a second performance which was even more successful than the first, since they had got over the nervousness that affected them at the start. The manager renewed his importunities for them to take a regular engagement, assuring them that they had made a decided hit. The best the boys could see their way clear to agree to, however, was to appear one night in each week, and this programme was carried out for the several weeks ensuing, with ever-increasing ability on the part of Bob and Joe and marked satisfaction to the manager of the sending station.
215CHAPTER XXVSOLVING THE MYSTERY
One night after another performance all of the radio boys were waiting in the railroad station when Larry, who had stepped to the news stand to buy a paper, came hurrying back to where they were sitting.
“I’ve spotted the men who ran me down in the motor boat!” he gasped. “They’re talking together over in that corner!”
“Are you sure?” asked Bob, as he looked in the direction indicated.
“Dead sure,” declared Larry. “The look I had at them as the motor boat was making for me is engraved on my memory so that I couldn’t forget it if I wanted to. Now’s the chance to get those fellows jugged. You know the police were looking for them after they ran us down and there’s a warrant out for their arrest. The police didn’t have their names, so the warrant read for John Doe and Richard Roe. We’ve got to act quickly, as they may get up to take a train at any minute.”216
“Keep your eye on them while I get a station policeman,” admonished Bob, as he hurried off.
He found the officer, who listened attentively as he told his story. Then he walked with Bob toward the men who were still engaged in earnest conversation.
As the officer’s eyes fell upon them, he gave a start.
“That’s Red Pete and Bud McCaffrey, two of the oldest crooks in the business,” he said. “They’re wanted for more things than that affair of yours. It will be a feather in my cap if I gather them in.”
He tightened his grip on the club as he came close to the two men. They looked up at him, and a startled look came into their eyes as they saw his uniform.
“Hello, Pete. Hello, McCaffrey,” he greeted them. “I guess you’d better come right along to headquarters. The Chief would like to have a talk with you.”
With a snarl the men leaped to their feet and sought to get past the officer. He was too quick for one of them, whom he grabbed by the collar and reduced to submission by two cracks with his club. The other eluded him, however, and promised to make good his escape. But quick as a flash Bob thrust out his foot and tripped him, at the same time falling upon him.217
The fall knocked the breath out of the fugitive, and Bob had no trouble in holding him until Joe and the other boys came up, together with another policeman, who had been attracted by the fracas. A patrol wagon was summoned and the prisoners were conveyed to the nearest police station, where they and the bags they had carried were searched in the presence of the boys, who had missed their train in order to be present and give what information they could about the motor boat affair.
The bags were found to contain, among jewelry and other things that were apparently the proceeds of robberies, a number of pawntickets calling for stickpins, watches and other articles which the police lieutenant at the desk announced would be looked up by some of his men. The prisoners were locked up to await a court examination, and the boys, after having given their names and addresses in case they were wanted later on as witnesses, left for home in a state of high excitement over the stirring events of the night.
Bob kept in touch with the case, and a few days later came rushing up to his friends in high glee.
“What do you think, fellows?” he announced. “After the extra performance I gave to-day at the broadcasting station, I dropped in at the police station and had a look at some of the loot the police had gathered up on the strength of the218pawntickets. And among them what do you think I saw?”
“The Crown Jewels of England,” guessed Herb.
Bob withered him with a look.
“The stickpins and watches of Buck Looker and Carl Lutz!” announced Bob impressively. “Their initials were on the watches.”
“Glory be!” cried Larry, who was present. “That clears me in that matter. I know none of you fellows believed Buck’s dirty fling, but all the same I’ve felt uncomfortable ever since.”
“Now you’ll get a nice letter of apology from Mr. Buck Looker—I don’t think,” remarked Joe.
The information was conveyed to Buck and Lutz, and they identified and recovered their property. But as Joe had predicted, not a word of apology for their unfounded charges was received from either one of the pair.
Not long afterward the arrested men were convicted and sentenced to long prison terms. It developed that they were old offenders who made a specialty of robbery at summer resorts.
Larry grew steadily better and there was every prospect that his lameness would in time wholly disappear. But he was doing so well at the broadcasting station that he determined to give up any further idea of vaudeville and devote himself to radio, going to a technical school in the219meantime to perfect his education. Tim steadily advanced in his chosen vocation, and the boys heard from him frequently. No one rejoiced more than they when they learned that he was at last in the big-time circuit.
During all these events the boys had been busy at developing the receiving set, and at last it was finished to their satisfaction. In the course of their work they gathered a large amount of familiarity with radio which proved of immense value later on, as will be seen in the next volume of this series, entitled: “The Radio Boys at Mountain Pass; Or, The Midnight Call For Assistance.”
The special set that represented the advance they had made in radio reception included the regenerative principle. This feature added immensely to the sensitiveness of the set. It consisted of a coil, variously known as the tickler, the intensity coil, and the regeneration coil. It involved three controls, the wave-length tuning, the regenerative coil, and the filament rheostat. The result of the combination was not only that the radio frequency waves could be carried over into the plate circuit, but that they could be amplified there by the energy derived from the local battery in the plate circuit without change of frequency or wave form, and that they could be fed into the grid circuit, where they increased the220potential variations on the grid so that the operation constantly repeated itself.
This “feed-back” regeneration enormously increased the loudness of the receiving signals, and its value to the boys was demonstrated one night when the air was unusually free of static and they clearly heard the signals from Nauen, Germany, and the Eiffel Tower, Paris. They looked at each other incredulously at first, and then as they heard the signals again too certainly to admit of doubt, they jumped to their feet, clapped each other on the shoulder, and fairly went wild with delight.
“The first boys in this old town to pick up a message from Europe!” cried Joe. “What next?”
“Asia perhaps,” suggested Jimmy.
“Then Australia,” ventured Herb.
“Or Mars,” predicted Bob. “Who knows?” he added, as he saw the smile of doubt on his comrades’ faces. “Marconi thought he might, and he’s no dreamer. What is impossible to radio?”