“Fine,” he replied holding the small receiver, which, by pressing a button on the side of the case, he had converted into a transmitter, a few inches from his mouth. “It seems to work all right at this end. Can you hear me?”
Pressing the button again he held the receiver to his ear once more.
“Plain as day,” came the delighted voice of his brother. “I’ll be down in two shakes of a dog’s tail.”
Bob had hardly disconnected the wires and taken the case and cylinder from his pockets when Jack burst into the room.
“Whoop la, she’s a go all right,” the younger boy shouted as he caught hold of his brother and for a moment the two delighted boys executed an Indian war dance about the room.
“We’d better not make too much noise,” Bob cautioned as out of breath he threw himself into a chair. “I expect the folks are in bed by this time and they may think the house is on fire,” he laughed.
“But to think that we’ve hit it at last after trying more than twenty different things,” Jack declared as he too sat down. “It seems too good to be a fact, but those selenium plates are evidently just the thing. They catch the waves just as well and perhaps better than aerials.”
“They seem to is right,” agreed more cautious Bob. “But remember we’ve tried them for only a comparatively few feet. How they will work at a long distance is another question.”
“Of course that’s so,” agreed Jack thoughtfully, “but, for the life of me, I can’t see why they won’t catch them just as well at a long distance as at a short. Anyhow we’ll know before long. I’ll take my bike and go up to the lake first thing in the morning and we’ll give them another try.”
“That’s the ticket, and now I move we hit the hay for a few hours’ sleep, I’m about played out working all day and most of the night the way we’ve been doing lately,” Bob said as he switched off the light.
The two boys had indeed as Jack put it, “been burning the candle at both ends,” and they no more than touched their pillows before they were sound asleep. Nor did they awake until their sister, Edna, called them.
“Come on there, you sleepy heads. Think I’m going to keep breakfast waiting for you all day?” she cried as she sprinkled a few drops of water on Jack’s face.