CHAPTER XIX
CONSTRUCTION AND DESTRUCTION
Bill and Gus worked long hours and diligently. All that the power plant construction had earned for Bill, the boy had turned in to help his mother. But Mr. Grier, busy at house building and doing better than at most other times, was able to add something to his boy's earnings, so that Gus could capitalize the undertaking, which he was eager to do.
The layout of the radio receiver outfits to be built alike were put at first on paper, full size; plan, side and end elevations and tracings were made of the same transferred to heavy manila paper. These were to be placed on the varnished panels, so that holes could be bored through paper and panel, thus insuring perfect spacing and arrangement. Sketches, also, were made of all details.
The audion tubes, storage batteries and telephone receivers had been purchased in the city. Almost all the other parts were made by the boys out of carefully selected materials. The amplifiers consisted of iron core transformers comprising several stages of radio frequency. The variometers were wound of 22-gauge wire. Loose couplers were used instead of the ordinary tuning coil. The switch arms, pivoting shafts and attachments for same, the contact points and binding posts were home-made. A potentiometer puzzled them most, both the making and the application, but they mastered this rather intricate mechanism, as they did the other parts.
In this labor, with everything at hand and a definite object in view, no boys ever were happier, nor more profitably employed, considering the influence upon their characters and future accomplishments. How true it is that they who possess worthy hobbies, especially those governed by the desire for construction and the inventive tendency, are getting altogether the most out of life and are giving the best of themselves!
The work progressed steadily—not too hastily, but most satisfactorily. Leaving at supper time, Bill's eyes would sparkle as he talked over their efforts for that day, and quiet Gus would listen with nods and make remarks of appreciation now and then.
"The way we've made that panel, Gus, with those end cleats doweled on and the shellacking of both sides—it'll never warp. I'm proud of that and it was mostly your idea."
"No, yours. I would have grooved the wood and used a tongue, but the dowels are firmer."
"A tongue would have been all right."
"But, dear boy, the dowels were easier to put in."
"Oh, well, it's done now. To-morrow we'll begin the mounting and wiring.
Then for the aërial!"
But that very to-morrow brought with it the hardest blow the boys had yet had to face. Full of high spirits, they walked the half mile out to the Hooper place and found the garage a mass of blackened ruins. It had caught fire, quite mysteriously, toward morning, and the gardener and chauffeur, roused by the crackling flames, had worked like beavers but with only time to push out the two automobiles; they could save nothing else.
The Hoopers had just risen from breakfast when the boys arrived; at once Grace came out, and her expressions of regret were such as to imply that the family had lost nothing, the boys being the only sufferers. And it was a bit staggering—all their work and machinery and tools and plans utterly ruined—the lathe and drill a heap of twisted iron. It was with a rueful face that Bill surveyed the catastrophe.
"Never mind, Billy," said Grace, detecting evidence of moisture in his eyes; but she went over to smiling Gus and gazed at him in wonder. "Don't you care?" she asked.
"You bet I care; mostly on Bill's account, though. He had set his heart mighty strong on this. I'm sorry about your loss, too."
"Oh, never mind that! Dad is 'phoning now for carpenters and his builder. He'll be out in a minute."
Out he did come, with a shout of greeting; he, too, had sensed that the real regrets would be with them.
"It'll be all right, me lads!" he shouted. "Herring'll be here on the next train, with a bunch o' men, an' I'll git your dad, Gus, too. Must have this building up just like it was in ten days. An' now count up just what you lads have lost; the hull sum total, b'jinks! I'm goin' to be the insurance comp'ny in this deal."
"The insurance company!" Bill exclaimed and Gus stared.
"Sure. Goin' to make up your loss an' then some. I'm a heap int'rested in this Eddy's son business, ain't I? Think I ain't wantin' to see that there contraption that hears a hunderd miles off? Get busy an' give me the expense. We've got to git a-goin'."
"But, Mr. Hooper, our loss isn't yours and you have got enough to—"
"Don't talk; figger! I'm runnin' this loss business. Don't want to make me mad; eh? Git at it an' hurry up!" He turned and walked away. Grace followed in a moment, but over her shoulder remarked to the wondering boys:
"Do as Dad says if you want to keep our friendship. Dad isn't any sort of a piker,—you know that."
The insistency was too direct; "the queen's wish was a command." The boys would have to comply and they could get square with their good friends in the end. So at it they went, Bill with pad and pencil, Gus calling out the items as his eye or his memory gleaned them from the hard-looking objects in the burned mass as he raked it over. Presently Grace came out again.
"Dad wants the list and the amount," she said. "He's got to go to the city with Mr. Herring."
Bill handed over his pad and she was gone, to return as quickly in a few minutes.
"Here is an order on the bank; you can draw the cash as you need it. You can start working in the stable loft; then bring your stuff over. There will be a watchman on the grounds from to-night, so don't worry about any more fires. I must go help get Dad off."
Once more she retreated; again she stopped to say something, as an afterthought, over her shoulder:
"And, boys, won't you let Skeets and me help you some? Skeets will be here again next week and I love to tinker and contrive and make all sorts of things; it'll be fun to see the radio receiver grow."
"Sure, you can," said Gus; and Bill nodded, adding: "We have only a limited time now, and any help will count a lot."
Going down to the bank, Bill again outlined the work in detail, suggesting the purchases of even better machinery and tools, of only the best grades of materials. There must be another trip to the city, the most strenuous part of the work.
"We'll get it through on time, I guess," said Bill.
"I'm not thinking so much of that as about how that fire started," said
Gus.
"It couldn't have been any of our chemicals, could it?"
"Chem—? My eye! Don't you know, old chap? I'll bet Mr. Hooper and Grace have the correct suspicion."
"More crooked business? You don't mean—"
"Sure, I do! Thad, of course. And, Bill, we're going to get him, sooner or later. Mr. Hooper won't want to stand this sort of thing forever. I've got a hunch that we're not through with that game yet."
CHAPTER XX
"TO LABOR AND TO WAIT"
It was truly astonishing what well organized labor could do under intelligent direction; the boys had a fine example of this before them and a fine lesson in the accomplishment. The new garage grew into a new and somewhat larger building, on the site of the old, almost over night. There were three eight-hour shifts of men and two foremen, with the supervising architect and Mr. Grier apparently always on the job. As soon as the second floor was laid, the roof on and the sheathing in place, Bill and Gus moved in. The men gave them every aid and Mr. Grier gave special attention to building their benches, trusses, a drawing-board stand, shelving and tool chests. Then, how those new radio receivers did come on!
Grace and Skeets were given little odd jobs during the very few hours of their insistent helping. They varnished, polished, oiled, cleaned copper wire, unpacked material, even swept up the débris left by the carpenters; at least, they did until Skeets managed to fall headlong down about one-half of the unfinished stairway and to sprain her ankle. Then Grace's loyalty compelled her attention to her friend.
Mr. Hooper breezed in from time to time, but never to take a hand; to do so would have seemed quite out of place, though the old gentleman laughingly made an excuse for this:
"Lads, I ain't no tinker man; never was. Drivin' a pesky nail's a huckleberry above my persimmon. Cattle is all I know, an' I kin still learn about them, I reckon. But I know what I kin see an' hear an', b'jinks, I'm still doubtin' I'm ever goin' to hear that there Eddy's son do this talkin'. But get busy, lads; get busy!"
"Oh, fudge, Dad! Can't you see they're dreadfully busy? You can't hurry them one bit faster." Grace was ever just.
"No," said Skeets, who had borrowed Bill's crutch to get into the shop for a little while. "No, Mr. Hooper; if they were to stay up all night, go without eats and work twenty-five hours a day they couldn't do any—" And just then the end of the too-much inclined crutch skated outward and the habitually unfortunate girl dropped kerplunk on the floor. Gus and Grace picked her up. She was not hurt by her fall. Her very plumpness had saved her.
"For goodness' sake, Skeets, are you ever going to get the habit of keeping yourself upright?" asked Grace, who laughed harder than the others, except Skeets herself; the stout girl generally got the utmost enjoyment out of her own troubles.
Quiet restored, Mr. Hooper returned to his subject.
"I reckon you lads, when you git this thing made that's goin' to hoodoo the air, will be startin' in an' tryin' somethin' else; eh?" he ventured, grinning.
"Later, perhaps, but not just yet," Bill replied. "Not until we can manage to learn a lot more, Gus and I. Mr. Grier says that the competition of brains nowadays is a lot sharper than it was in Edison's young days, and even he had to study and work a lot before he really did any big inventing. Professor Gray says that a technical education is best for anyone who is going to do things, though it is a long way from making a fellow perfect and must be followed up by hard practice."
"And we can wait, I guess," put in Gus.
"Until we can manage in some way to scrape together enough cash to buy books and get apparatus for experiments and go on with our schooling."
"We want more physics and especially electricity," said Gus.
"And other knowledge as well, along with that," Bill amended.
"I reckon you fellers is right," said Mr. Hooper, "but I don't know anything about it. I quit school when I was eleven, but that ain't sayin' I don't miss it. If I had an eddication now, like you lads is goin' to git, er like the Perfesser has, I'd give more'n half what I own. Boys that think they're smart to quit school an' go to work is natchal fools. A feller may git along an' make money, but he'd make a heap more an' be a heap happier, 'long of everything else, if he'd got a schoolin'. An' any boy that's got real sand in his gizzard can buckle down to books an' get a schoolin', even if he don't like it. What I'm a learnin' nowadays makes me know that a feller can make any old study int'restin' if he jes' sets down an' looks at it the right way."
"That's what Gus and I think. There are studies we don't like very much, but we can make ourselves like them for we've got to know a lot about them."
"Grammar, for instance," said Gus.
"Sure. It is tiresome stuff, learning a lot of rules that work only half. But if a fellow is going to be anybody and wants to stand in with people, he's got to know how to talk correctly and write, too." Bill's logic was sound.
"Daddy should have had a drilling in grammar," commented Grace, laughing.
"Oh, you!" blurted Skeets. "Mr. Hooper can talk so that people understand him—and when you do talk," she turned to the old gentleman, "I notice folks are glad to listen, and so is Grace."
"But, my dear," protested the subject of criticism, "they'd listen better an' grin less if I didn't sling words about like one o' these here Eye-talians shovelin' dirt."
"You just keep a-shovelin', Mr. Hooper, your own way," said Bill, "and if we catch anybody even daring to grin at you, why, I'll have Gus land on them with his famous grapple!"
Mr. Hooper threw back his coat, thrust his thumbs into the armholes of his big, white vest and swelled out his chest.
"Now, listen to that! An' this from a lad who ain't got a thing to expect from me an' ain't had as much as he's a-givin' me, either—an' knows it. But that's nothin' else but Simon pure frien'ship, I take it. An' Gus, here, him an' Bill, they think about alike; eh, Gus?" Gus nodded and the old gentleman continued, addressing his remarks to his daughter and Skeets:
"Now, if I know anything at all about anything at all I know what I'm goin' to do. I ain't got no eddication, but that ain't goin' to keep me from seein' some others git it. You Gracie, fer one, an' you, too, Skeeter, if your old daddy'll let you come an' go to school with Gracie. But that ain't all; if you lads kin git ol' Eddy's son out o' the air on this contraption you're makin' an' hear him talk fer sure, I'm goin' to see to it that you kin git all the tec—tec—what you call it?—eddication there is goin' an' I'm goin' to put Perfesser Gray wise on that, too, soon's he comes back. No—don't you say a word now. I know what I'm a-doin'." With that the old gentleman turned and marched out of the shop. But at the bottom of the garage steps he called back:
"Say, boys, I gotta go away fer a couple o' weeks, or mebbe three. Push it right along an' mebbe you'll be hearin' from old man Eddy's son when I git back!"
CHAPTER XXI
EARLY STRUGGLES
The receiving outfits were completed; the aërials had been put up, one installed at the garage, the other at the mansion. Grace naturally had all, the say about placing the one in her home. The aërial, of four wires, each thirty feet long and parallel, were attached equi-distant, and at each end to springy pieces of ash ten feet long, these being insulators in part and sustained by spiral spring cables, each divided by a glass insulator block, the extended cables being fastened to a maple tree and the house chimney. The ground wire went down the side of the house beside a drain pipe.
The house receiver, in a cabinet that had cost the boys much painstaking labor, was set by a window and, after Grace and Skeets had been instructed how to tune the instrument to varying wave lengths, they and good Mrs. Hooper enjoyed many delightful periods of listening in, all zealously consulting the published programs from the great broadcasting stations.
The other outfit made by the boys, which, except the elaborate box and stand, was an exact duplicate of the Hooper receiver, was taken to the Brown cottage. Gus insisted that Bill had the best right to it, and as the Griers and Mrs. Brown had long been the best of friends and lived almost next door to each other, all the members of the carpenter's family would be welcome to listen in whenever they wanted to. The little evening gatherings at certain times for this purpose were both mirthful and delightful.
The boys' aërial was a three-wire affair, stretching forty feet, and erected in much the same way as that at the Hooper house, except that one mast had to be put up as high as the gable end of the cottage, which was the other support, thirty-five feet high.
Then, when the announcement was made that the talks on Edison were to be repeated, Bill and Gus told the class and others of their friends, so the Hoopers came also, the merry crowd filling the Brown living-room. Mr. Hooper's absence was noted and regretted from the first, as his eagerness "to be shown" was well known to them all.
The first lectures concerning Edison's boyhood were repeated. The second and third talks were each better attended than the preceding ones. Cora, Dot, Skeets and two other girls occupied the front row; Ted Bissell and Terry Watkins were present. Bill presided with much dignity, most carefully tuning in, making the announcements, then becoming the most interested listener, the theme being ever dear to him.
On the occasion of the third lecture, Bill said:
"Now, then, classmates and other folks, this is a new one to all of us. The last was where we left off in June on the Professor's receiver. You can just bet this is going to be a pippin. First off, though, is a violin solo by—by—oh, I forget his name,—and may it be short and sweet!"
After the music, the now well-known voice came from the horn:
"This is the third talk on the career and accomplishments of Thomas Alva
Edison:
"In a little while young Edison began to get tired of the humdrum life of a telegraph operator in Boston. As I have told you, after the vote-recorder, he had invented a stock ticker and started a quotation service in Boston. He opened operations from a room over the Gold Exchange with thirty to forty subscribers.
"He also engaged in putting up private lines, upon which he used an alphabetical dial instrument for telegraphing between business establishments, a forerunner of modern telephony. This instrument was very simple and practical, and any one could work it after a few minutes' explanation.
"The inventor has described an accident he suffered and its effect on him:
"'In the laboratory,' he says, 'I had a large induction coil. One day I got hold of both electrodes of this coil, and it clinched my hands on them so that I could not let go!
"'The battery was on a shelf. The only way I could get free was to back off and pull the coil, so that the battery wires would pull the cells off the shelf and thus break the circuit. I shut my eyes and pulled, but the nitric acid splashed all over my face and ran down my back.
"'I rushed to a sink, which was only half big enough, and got in as well as I could, and wiggled around for several minutes to let the water dilute the acid and stop the pain. My face and back were streaked with yellow; the skin was thoroughly oxidized.
"'I did not go on the street by daylight for two weeks, as the appearance of my face was dreadful. The skin, however, peeled off, and new skin replaced it without any damage.'
"The young inventor went to New York City to seek better fortunes. First he tried to sell his stock printer and failed in the effort. Then he returned to Boston and got up a duplex telegraph—for sending two messages at once over one wire. He tried to demonstrate it between Rochester and New York City. After a week's trial, his test did not work, partly because of the inefficiency of his assistant.
"He had run in debt eight hundred dollars to build this duplex apparatus. His other inventions had cost considerable money to make, and he had failed to sell them. So his books, apparatus and other belongings were left in Boston, and when he returned to New York he arrived there with but a few cents in his pocket. He was very hungry. He walked the streets in the early morning looking for breakfast but with so little money left that he did not wish to spend it.
"Passing a wholesale tea house, he saw a man testing tea by tasting it.
The young inventor asked the 'taster' for some of the tea. The man
smiled and held out a cup of the fragrant drink. That tea was Thomas A.
Edison's first breakfast in New York City.
"He walked back and forth hunting for a telegraph operator he had known, but that young man was also out of work. When Edison finally found him, all his friend could do was to lend him a dollar!
"By this time Edison was nearly starved. With such limited resources he gave solemn thought to what he should select that would be most satisfying. He decided to buy apple dumplings and coffee, and in telling afterward of his first real 'eats' in New York, Mr. Edison said he never had anything that tasted so good.
"Just as young Ben Franklin, on arriving in New York City from Boston, looked for a job in a printing office, the youthful modern inventor applied for work in a telegraph office there. As there was no vacancy and he needed the rest of his borrowed dollar for meals, Edison found lodging in the battery room of the Gold Indicator Company.
"It was four years after the Civil War and, besides there being much unemployment, the fluctuations in the value of gold, as compared with the paper currency of that day, made it necessary to have gold 'indicators' something like the tickers from the Stock Exchange to-day. Dr. Laws, presiding officer of the Gold Exchange, had recently invented a system of gold indicators, which were placed in brokers' offices and operated from the Gold Exchange.
"When Edison got permission to spend the night in the battery room of this company, there were about three hundred of these instruments operating in offices in all directions in lower New York City.
"On the third day after his arrival, while sitting in this office, the complicated instrument sending quotations out on all the lines made a very loud noise, and came to a sudden stop with a crash. Within two minutes over three hundred boys—-one from every broker's office in the street—rushed upstairs and crowded the long aisle and office where there was hardly room for one-third that number, each yelling that a certain broker's wire was out of order, and that it must be fixed at once.
"It was pandemonium, and the manager got so wild that he lost all control of himself. Edison went to the indicator, and as he had already studied it thoroughly, he knew right where the trouble was. He went right out to see the man in charge, and found Dr. Laws there also—the most excited man of all!
"The Doctor demanded to know what caused all the trouble, but his man stood there, staring and dumb. As soon as Edison could get Laws' attention he told him he knew what the matter was.
"'Fix it! Fix it! and be quick about it!' Dr. Laws shouted.
"Edison went right to work and in two hours had everything in running order. Dr. Laws came in to ask the inventor's name and what he was doing. When told, he asked the young man to call on him in his office the next day. Edison did so and Laws said he had decided to place Edison in charge of the entire plant at a salary of three hundred dollars a month!
"This was such a big jump from any wages he had ever received that it quite paralyzed the youthful inventor. He felt that it was too much to last long, but he made up his mind he would do his best to earn that salary if he had to work twenty hours a day. He kept that job, making improvements and devising other stock tickers, until the Gold and Stock Telegraph Company consolidated with the Gold Indicator Company."
CHAPTER XXII
FAME AND FORTUNE
"At twenty-two," the lecturer continued, "while Edison was with the Gold and Stock Telegraph Company, he often heard Jay Gould and 'Jim' Fisk, the great Wall Street operators of that day, talk over the money market. At night he ate his lunches in the coffee-house in Printing House Square, where he used to meet Henry J. Raymond, founder of The New York Times, Horace Greeley of the Tribune and James Gordon Bennett of the Herald, the greatest trio of journalists in the world. One of the most memorable remarks made by a frequenter of this night lunch, as recorded by Mr. Edison was:
"'This is a great place; a plate of cakes, a cup of coffee, and a
Russian bath, all for ten cents!'
"The so-called bath was on account of the heat of the crowded room.
"Mr. Edison tells this story of the terrible panic in Wall Street, in September, 1869, brought on chiefly by the attempt of Jay Gould and his associates to corner the gold market:
"'On Black Friday we had a rather exciting time with our indicators. The Gould and Fisk crowd had cornered the gold and had run up the quotations faster than the indicator could record them. In the morning it was quoting 150 premium while Gould's agents were bidding 165 for five millions or less.
"'There was intense excitement. Broad and other streets in the Wall Street district were crammed with crazy crowds. In the midst of the excitement, Speyer, another large operator, became so insane that it took five men to hold him. I sat on the roof of a Western Union booth and watched the surging multitudes.
"'A Western Union man I knew came up and said to me: "Shake hands,
Edison. We're all right. We haven't got a cent to lose."'
"After the company with which our young inventor was connected had sold out its inventions and improvements to the Gold and Stock Telegraph Company, Mr. Edison produced a machine to print gold quotations instead of merely indicating them. The attention of the president of the Gold and Stock Company was attracted to the success of the wonderful young inventor.
"Edison had produced quite a number of inventions. One of these was the special ticker which was used many years in other large cities, because it was so simple that it could be operated by men less expert than the operators in New York. It was used also on the London Stock Exchange.
"After he had gotten up a good many inventions and taken out patents for them, the president of the big company came to see him and was shown a simple device to regulate tickers that had been printing figures wrong. This thing saved a good deal of labor to a large number of men, and prevented trouble for the broker himself. It impressed the president so much that he invited Edison into his private office and said, in a stage whisper:
"'Young man, I would like to settle with you for your inventions here.
How much do you want for them?"
"Edison had thought it all over and had come to the conclusion that, on account of the hard night-and-day work he had been doing, he really ought to have five thousand dollars, but he would be glad to settle for three thousand, if they thought five thousand was too much. But when asked point-blank, he hadn't the courage to name either sum—thousands looked large to him then—so he hesitated a bit and said:
"'Well, General, suppose you make me an offer.'
"'All right,' said the president. 'How would forty thousand dollars strike you?'
"Young Edison came as near fainting then as he ever did in his life. He was afraid the 'General' would hear his heart thump, but he said quietly that he thought that amount was just about right. A contract was drawn up which Edison signed without reading.
"Forty thousand dollars was written in the first check Thomas A. Edison ever received. With throbbing heart and trembling fingers he took it to the bank and handed it in to the paying teller, who looked at it disapprovingly and passed it back, saying something the young inventor could not hear because of his deafness. Thinking he had been cheated, Edison went out of the bank, as he said, 'to let the cold sweat evaporate.'
"Then he hurried back to the president and demanded to know what it all meant. The president and his secretary laughed at the green youth's needless fears and explained that the teller had probably told him to write his name on the back of the check. They not only showed him how to endorse it, but sent a clerk to the bank to identify him—because of the large amount of money to be paid over.
"Just for a joke on the 'jay,' the teller gave him the whole forty thousand dollars in ten- and twenty-dollar bills. Edison gravely stowed away the money till he had filled all his pockets including those in his overcoat. He sat up all night in his room in Newark, in fear and trembling, lest he be robbed. The president laughed next day but said that joke had gone far enough; then he showed Thomas A. Edison how to open his first bank account."
Again the lecturer's voice ceased to be heard; again another voice announced that the fourth talk would be given on a certain date a few days later. A negro song with banjo accompaniment followed and the radio entertainment was over.
Everyone was talking, laughing and voicing pleasure in the increasingly wonderful demonstration of getting sounds out of the air, from hundreds of miles away. Only Gus and Bill remained and the two—as Billy always referred to their confabs—went into "executive session." This radio receiver was altogether absorbing, much too attractive to let alone easily. The boys were proud of their very successful construction and they could neither forget that fact, nor pass up the delight of listening in.
This time Gus had the first inspiration. Billy often thought how, sometimes strangely or by chance or correct steering, his chum seemed to grasp the deeper matters of detection. Gus eagerly acknowledged Bill as possessing a genius for mechanical construction and invention, without which the comrades would get nowhere in such efforts, even admitting Gus's skill and cleverness with tools. But when it came to having hunches and good luck concerning matters of human mystery, Gus was the king pin.
"I'm going to see what else we can get from near or far," Gus said, detaching the horn and using the head clamp with its two ear 'phones which had been added to the set. He sat down and began moving the switch arms, one from contact to contact, the other throughout the entire range of its contacts at each movement of the first, and proceeding thus slowly for some minutes.
Bill had turned to the study of his Morse code, which the boys had taken up and pursued at every opportunity during the building of the radio sets. Gus, however, was less familiar with the dots and dashes. A whisper, as though Gus were afraid the sound of his voice would disturb the electric waves, suddenly switched Bill's attention.
"Two dots, three dots, two dots, one dash, one dot and dash, one dot, one dash and two dots, same, dot, dash, dot, two dots, two dashes and dot, four dots, one dash, two dots, two dashes, two dots." A pause. Gus had whispered each signal to Bill; then he asked: "What do you make it?"
"I make it: 'Is it all right, then?' They have been talking some time, I guess," said Bill; and added: "That's a good way to pick up and wrestle with the code; it's dandy practice and we want—"
"Wait, pal, wait!" gasped Gus, bending forward again.
Words came now, instead of the code. It was evident that the person giving them out had sought authority for so doing from headquarters.
Gus heard:
"This is to whom it may concern: Five hundred dollars' reward is to be paid for information leading to the arrest of a party who last night broke into the home of Nathan R. Hallowell. After deliberately and, without apparent cause, shooting and badly wounding Mrs. Hallowell and striking down an old servant woman, he stole several hundred dollars' worth of jewels and silverware. Both the servant, who kept her wits about her, and Mrs. Hallowell, who is now out of danger, have described the assailant. He is about eighteen, of medium height, slender, dark complexioned, one eye noticeably smaller than the other, nose long and pointed, has a nervous habit of twitching his shoulder. He wore a light brown suit and a gray cap. Send all information, or broadcast same to Police Headquarters, Willstown. Immediate detention of any reasonable suspect is recommended."
Gus wheeled about.
"Bill, it's Thad! Description hits him exactly and there's five hundred reward. He's done a house-breaking stunt and tried to kill two people and I don't believe they've got him yet. Mr. Hooper wouldn't want us to keep quiet on this; would he?"
"It might be a good idea to talk to Mrs. Hooper and Grace about it before you inform on Thad," Bill said.
"I'll do that," Gus agreed and was off. In half an hour he was back again.
"I saw them, late as it was. Grace and Skeets were playing crokinole and Mrs. Hooper came down. And, what do you think? Mr. Hooper wrote that Thad had forged his name on a check for several hundred dollars and got away with it and, even if he did still want to shield Thad, the law wouldn't let him. Grace says Thad ought to be caught and punished and that her father will want it done."
"But Gus, even if you got Willstown on the long distance 'phone, how would that help to——"
"We'll get them later; after we have located Thad."
"Oh, Gus, do you think Ben Shultz was dreaming?"
"When he said he saw Thad out there in the barren ground woods by the old cabin? Not a bit of it! It's the last place they'd ever think of looking for him—right on his uncle's place. Thad is pretty keen in some ways. But I doubt if he'll stay there long. He'll be pulling out for the mountains. There's a late moon to-night, you see."
"I wish I could go with you; this old leg—"
"Never mind now; don't worry. I'll take Bennie Shultz and make him messenger. If Thad's there you can get down to the drug store and call Willstown. That'll make our case sure. By cracky, old scout, five hundred! We can—"
"Chickens, old man; chickens. Hatch 'em first. But you will, I'll bet, and it will be yours; not—"
"What are you talking about? Ours! It's as much your job as mine.
Divy-divy, half'n'half, fifty-fifty. Well, I'm off."
CHAPTER XXIII
JUSTICE
"Now then, Bennie," whispered Gus, "beat it on the q.t. Then streak it for Bill's house. He'll be watching for you. Tell him our man is here and probably getting ready to light out. You needn't come back; I'm only going to spot this bird and find out where he goes, if I can. You'll get well paid for this, kid."
The two boys were lying on the sandy ground among young cedars, and watching the little cabin not fifty yards distant. Out of this crude shack had come the sole occupant, to stand and gaze about him for a minute, lifting his face to the moon. Gus could plainly distinguish the gray cap, the slender build of the youth; he recognized the walk, a certain manner of standing, and once he plainly caught that upward shift of the shoulder. Then Gus gave his orders to Bennie, knowing that they would be carried out with precision, for the little fellow, almost a waif and lacking proper influences, would have nearly laid down his life for Gus after the athlete had very deservedly whipped two town bullies that were making life miserable for him. Moreover, the youngster wanted to be like Gus and Bill, in the matter of mentality, and a promise of reward meant money with which he could buy books.
Left alone, Gus crept nearer the cabin. He could be reasonably sure of himself, but not of Bennie, who might crack a stick or sneeze. Some low cedars grew on the slope above the cabin; Gus took advantage of these and got within about forty feet of the shack. Then he lay watching for fully an hour, there being no sign of the inmate. But after what had seemed to Gus almost half the night, out came the suspect, stood a moment as before and started off; it could be seen that he carried a small pack and a heavy stick in his hands.
Then Gus was taken by surprise; even his ready intuition failed him. He had made up his mind that he was in for a long hike to the not too distant mountains and that over this ground the work of keeping the other fellow in sight and of keeping out of sight himself was going to mean constant vigilance and keen stalking. But the midnight prowler swung around the cabin and with long, certain strides headed straight for the Hooper mansion.
This was easier going for Gus than the open road toward the mountains would have been; there was plenty of growth—long grass, trees and bushes—to keep between him and the other who never tried to seek shelter, nor hardly once looked behind him until the end of the broad driveway was reached.
Gus knew the watchman must be about, though possibly half asleep. He also believed that the suspected youth, by the way he advanced, must know the ways of the watchman. Roger, the big Saint Bernard, let out a booming roar and came bounding down the driveway; the fellow spoke to him and that was all there was to that. Gus stayed well behind, fearing the friendly beast might come to him also and thus give his presence away, but Roger was evidently coaxed to remain with the first comer.
The big house stood silent, bathed in the moonlight; there was no sign of anyone about, other than the miscreant who stood now in the shadow, surveying the place. Presently he put down his pack, went to a window and, quick and silent as an expert burglar, jimmied the sash. There was only one sudden, sharp snap of the breaking sash bolt and in a moment the fellow had vanished within the darkness and Gus distinguished only the occasional flash of a pocket torch inside.
There was but one thing to do, and that as quickly as possible. The dog had gone around to lie again on the front veranda. Gus made a bolt for the rear of the grounds, reached the garage, found an open door, began softly to push it open and suddenly found himself staring into the muzzle of a revolver that protruded from the blackness beyond.
"Don't shoot! I'm Gus Grier, Mr. Watchman." The boy was conscious of a certain unsteadiness in his own voice.
"Oh! An' phwat air yes doin' here?"
"Talk low," said Gus, "but listen first: There's a burglar in the house. I spotted him some time ago, followed him and saw him get through the dining-room window. Move fast and he's yours!"
Pat moved fast. He recognized that he had not been up to his duty so far and he meant to make amends. With Gus following, the boy's nerves on edge with the possibility that the housebreaker would shoot, the Irishman, who was no coward, reached the house, entered the basement, flooded the house with light, alarmed the inmates and in a few minutes had every avenue of escape guarded, the chauffeur, butler and gardener coming on the scene, all half dressed and armed.
What followed needs little telling. Hardly had the men decided to search the house before the sound of a rapidly approaching motor horn was heard and from the quickly checked car two men leaped out, the constable and a deputy from the town—and then Bill Brown! The illuminated house had stopped their course. The search revealed Thad cowering in a closet, all the fight gone out of him. Grace and Skeets were not even awakened; Mrs. Hooper did not leave her room.
As the constable turned a light on the handcuffed prisoner he remarked: "That's the chap all right. Description fits. He'll bring that five hundred all right."
"A reward; is it?" said the watchman. "An' don't ye fergit who gits it. Not me, ner you, Constable, but the bye here." He laid his hand on Gus's shoulder. The constable laughed:
"Oh, you're slow, Pat. We all know that. The kid and his pal, that young edition of Edison by the name of Billy Brown, got the thing cinched over their radio. We didn't know that the description that Willstown sent out fitted Mr. Hooper's own nephew."
And so with relief, mixed with regret for Mr. Hooper's sake, Gus and Bill saw a sulky and rebellious Thad vanish into the night and out of their immediate affairs.
CHAPTER XXIV
GENIUS IS OFTEN ERRATIC
The fourth radio talk on the life, character and accomplishments of the world's foremost inventor proved to be the most interesting of the series. Fairview had heard of these entertainments and so many people had asked Bill and Gus if they might attend, the boys became aware that the modest little living-room of the Brown home would not hold half of them. They, therefore, decided to let the radio be heard in the town hall, if a few citizens would pay the rent for the evening.
This was readily arranged, but when the suggestion was made that an admission be charged, the boys refused. This was their treat all round, even to transferring their aërial to the hall between its cupola and a mast at the other end of the roof, put up by the ever willing Mr. Grier who could not do too much to further the boys' interests.
Early in the evening the hall was filled to overflowing, and ushers were appointed to seat the crowd. Naturally there was much chattering and scraping of feet until suddenly a strain of music, an orchestral selection, began to come out of the horn and there was instant quiet. After its conclusion came the voice:
"This is our last lecture on Edison. Following this will be given a series on Marconi, the inventor of the wireless.
"As I have told you, Mr. Thomas Alva Edison's leap to fortune was sudden and spectacular, as have been most of his accomplishments since. Those who do really great things along the lines of physical improvement, or concerning the inception of large enterprises are apt to startle the public and to surprise thoughtful people almost as though some impossible thing had been achieved.
"From a mere salaried operator to forty thousand dollars in a lump sum for expert work was quite a jump.
"The forty thousand dollars, however, did not turn Mr. Edison's head as has been the effect of sudden wealth on many a good-sized but smaller minded man.
"He used it as a fund to start a plant and hire expert men to experiment and work out the inventions which came to him so fast in his ceaseless work and study. He could get along with as little sleep as Napoleon is said to have required when a mighty battle was on. Edison could lie down on a settee or table and sleep just as the Little Corporal did even while cannon were booming all around him.
"There was something Napoleonic, also, about Edison's intensity of application and his masterfulness in his gigantic undertakings. If genius is the ability to take great pains, Thomas A. Edison is the greatest genius in the world to-day—if not in all history.
"Sometimes, as Napoleon did with his chief generals before a decisive engagement, Edison would shut himself up with his confidential coworkers. Sometimes he and they would neither eat nor sleep till they had fought out a problem of greater importance to the world than even Napoleon's crossing the Alps or the decisive battle of Austerlitz. But, though he began to work on a large scale, young Edison's financial facilities were of the crudest and simplest.
"Almost all of his men were on piece-work, and he allowed them to make good salaries. He never cut them down, although their pay was very high as they became more and more expert.
"Instead of books he kept hooks—two of them. All the bills he owed he jabbed on one hook, and stuck mems of what was due him on the other. If he had no tickers ready to deliver when an account came due, he gave his note for the amount required.
"Then as one bill after another fell due, a bank messenger came with a notice of protest pinned to the note, demanding a dollar and a quarter extra for protest fees besides principal and interest. Whereupon he would go to New York and borrow more funds, or pay the note on the spot if he happened to have money enough on hand. He kept up this expensive way of doing business for two years, but his credit was perfectly good. Every dealer he patronized was glad to furnish him with what he wanted, and some expressed admiration for his new method of paying bills.
"But, to save his own time, Edison had to hire a bookkeeper whose inefficiency made him regret for a while the change in his way of doing business. He tells of one of his experiences with this accountant:
"'After the first three months I told him to go through his books and see how much we had made.
"Three thousand dollars!" he told me after studying a while. So, to celebrate this, I gave a dinner to several of the staff.
"'Two days after that he came to tell me he had made a big mistake, for we had lost five hundred dollars. Several days later he came round again and tried to prove to me that we had made seven thousand dollars in the three months!'
"This was so disconcerting that the inventor decided to change bookkeepers, but he never 'counted his chickens before they were hatched.' In other words, he did not believe that he had made anything till he had paid all his bills and had his money safe in the bank.
"Mr. Edison once made the remark that when Jay Gould got possession of the Western Union Telegraph Company, no further progress in telegraphy was possible, because Gould took no pride in building up. All he cared for was money, only money.
"The opposite was true of Edison. While he had decided to invent only that which was of commercial value, it was not on account of the money but because that which millions of people will buy is of the greatest value to the world.
"After he stopped telegraphing, Edison turned his mind to many inventions. It is not generally known that the first successful, widely sold typewriter was perfected by him.
"This typewriter proved a difficult thing to make commercial. The alignment of the letters was very bad. One letter would be one-sixteenth of an inch above the others, and all the letters wanted to wander out of line. He worked on it till the machine gave fair results. The typewriter he got into commercial shape is now known as the Remington.
"It is not hard to understand that Mr. Edison invented the American District Messenger call-box system, which has been superseded by the telephone, but very few people know when they are eating caramels and other sticky confectionery that wax or paraffin paper was invented by Edison. Also the tasimeter, an instrument so delicate that it measures the heat of the most distant star, Arcturus. One of the few vacations Mr. Edison allowed himself was when he traveled to the Rocky Mountains to witness a total eclipse of the sun and experiment on certain stars with his tasimeter, and this very clearly shows that Mr. Edison is as much interested in the advancement of science as in matters purely commercial."
CHAPTER XXV
THE GENIUS OF THE AGE
"I want to tell you something more about the personal side of this great man," continued the voice from the horn.
"One of the striking things about Thomas Alva Edison is his gameness. In this respect he has been greater than Napoleon, who was not always a 'good loser,' for he had come to regard himself as bound to win, whether or no; so when everything went against him, he expressed himself by kicking against Fate. But when Edison saw the hard work of nine years which had cost him two million dollars vanish one night in a sudden storm, he only laughed and said, 'I never took much stock in spilt milk.'
"When his laboratories were burned or he suffered great reverses, Edison considered them merely the fortunes of war. In this respect he was most like General Washington, who, though losing more battles than he gained, learned to 'snatch victory from the jaws of defeat,' and win immortal success.
"Some of Edison's discoveries were dramatic and amusing. During his telephone experiments he learned the power of a diaphragm to take up sound vibrations, and he had made a little toy that, when you talked into the funnel, would start a paper man sawing wood. Then he came to the conclusion that if he could record the movements of the diaphragm well enough he could cause such records to reproduce the movements imparted to them by the human voice.
"But in place of using a disk, he got up a small machine with a cylinder provided with grooves around the surface. Over this some tinfoil was to be placed and he gave it to an assistant to construct. Edison had but little faith that it would work, but he said he wanted to get up a machine that would 'talk back.' The assistant thought it was ridiculous to expect such a thing, but he went ahead and followed the directions given him. Edison has told of this:
"'When it was finished and the foil was put on, I shouted a verse of "Mary had a little lamb" into the crude little machine. Then I adjusted the reproducer, which when he began to operate it, proceeded to grind out—
"'Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as snow,
And everywhere that Mary went,
The lamb was sure to go'
"with the very quality and tones of my voice! We were never so taken back in our lives. All hands were called in to witness the phenomenon and, recovering from their astonishment, the boys joined hands and danced around me, singing and shouting in their excitement. Then each yelled something at the machine—bits of slang or slurs—and it made them roar to hear that funny little contraption 'sass back!'
"Edison has always had a saving sense of humor. Though such a driver for work—sometimes twenty hours a day seemed too short and they often worked all of twenty-four,—there was not unfrequently a jolly, prank-playing relaxation among the employees in the laboratory. If some fellow fell asleep and began snoring the others would get a record of it and play it later for the culprit or they would fix up a 'squawkophone' to outdo his racket. Most amusing was Edison's means of taking a short nap by curling up in an ordinary roll-top desk, and then turning over without falling out.
"Everybody knows Edison really invented the telephone—that is, he made it work perfectly and brought it to the greatest commercial value, so that a billion men, women and children are using it in nearly all the languages and dialects in the civilized world. But he was very careful to give Dr. Alexander Graham Bell credit for his original work on this great invention.
"When a friend on the other side of the Atlantic wired that the English had offered 'thirty thousand' for the rights to one of Edison's improvements to the telephone for that country, it was promptly accepted. When the draft came the inventor found, much to his surprise, that it was for thirty thousand pounds—nearly one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
"The phonograph or talking machine has been considered one of Edison's greatest inventions, but it does not compare in importance and value with the electric incandescent burner light. This required many thousands of experiments and tests to get a filament that would burn long enough in a vacuum to make the light sufficiently cheap to compete with petroleum or gas. During all the years that he was experimenting on different metals and materials for the electric light which was yet to be, in a literal sense, the light of the world, he had men hunting in all countries for exactly the right material out of which the carbon filament now in use is made. Thousands of kinds of wood, bamboo and other vegetable substances were tried. The staff made over fifty thousand experiments in all for this one purpose. This illustrates the art and necessity of taking pains, one of Mr. Edison's greatest characteristics. The story of producing electric light would fill a big volume.
"When the proper filament was discovered and applied there was great rejoicing in the laboratory and a regular orgy of playing pranks and fun.
"The philosophers say we measure time by the succession of ideas. If this is true the time must have been longer and seemed shorter in Edison's laboratories than anywhere else. The great inventor seldom carried a watch and seemed not to like to have clocks about.
"Soon after he was married, the story went the rounds of the press that within an hour or two after the ceremony, Edison became so engrossed with an invention that he forgot that it was his wedding day. Edison has declared this story to be untrue.
"'That's just one of the kind of yarns,' said the inventor laughing, 'that the reporters have to make up when they run short of news. It was the invention of an imaginative chap who knows I'm a little absent-minded. I never forgot that I was married.
"'But there was an incident that may have given a little color to such a story. On our wedding day a lot of stock tickers were returned to the factory and were said to need overhauling.
"'About an hour after the ceremony I was reminded of those tickers and when we got to our new home, I told my wife about them, adding that I would like to walk down to the factory a little while and see if the boys had found out what was the matter.
"'She consented and I went down and found an assistant working on the job. We both monkeyed with the machines an hour or two before we got them to rights. Then I went home.
"'My wife and I laughed at the story at first, but when we came across it about every other week, it began to get rather stale. It was one of those canards that stick, and I shall be spoken of always as the man who forgot his wife within an hour after he was married.'
"A similar yarn was told of Abraham Lincoln, which was equally false, but even more generally believed.
"Out of a multitude of labor savers and world-beaters—and world savers, too!—to be credited to Mr. Edison, it is impossible to mention more than these:
"The quadruplex telegraph system for sending four messages—two in each direction—at the same time; the telephone carbon transmitter; the phonograph; the incandescent electric light and complete system; magnetic separator; Edison Effect now used in Radio bulbs; giant rock crushers; alkaline storage battery; motion picture camera. These are but few of Edison's inventions, but they are giving employment to over a million people and making the highest use of billions of dollars.
"With Mr. Edison's modesty it is difficult to get him to talk of the relative importance of his inventions, but he has expressed the opinion that the one of most far-reaching importance is the electric light system which includes the generation, regulation, distribution and measurement of electric current for light, heat and power. The invention he loves most is the phonograph as he is a lover of music. He has patented about twelve hundred inventions.
"Recent developments are proving that the moving picture, because of its educational and emotional appeal is the greatest of them all. It is estimated that more than one hundred millions of people go to one of these shows once every seven days, which is equivalent to every man, woman and child in the United States of America going to a movie once a week. The motion picture reaches, teaches and preaches to more people in America than all the schools, churches, books, magazines and newspapers put together, and when it teaches, it does it in a vivid way that live people like.
"Political campaigns are beginning to be carried on with the silver screen for a platform. Writers in great magazines are proving, on the authority of the Japanese themselves, that the American moving picture is re-making Japan. Another, who has studied the signs of the times, asserts that the only way to bring order out of chaos in Russia is by means of the motion picture.
"Comparisons are of times odious, but not in this case, for there is no man living, nor has there ever lived a man, except the Great Teacher, who has more greatly and generally benefited humanity or cast a stronger light upon the processes of civilization than Thomas Alva Edison."
At the close of another musical number there was a general expectation of dismissal, a shuffling of feet and a murmur of voices. This was checked suddenly by Bill. The boy had been near the receiver all the while, on the chance of being needed in case of mishap, or for a sharper "tuning in"; now he got what the others did not and rising he let out a yell:
"Everybody quiet! Something else!" and in the instant hush was heard the completion of an announcement:
"—Scouts of America, the Girl Scouts and other organizations of kindred nature, upon their urgent invitation. We are making this announcement now for the fourth and last time in the hope that it may be universally received. Mr. Edison will now probably be here within an hour from this minute. All the youth of the land who may avail themselves of radio service will please respond and listen in. In a warmly appreciative sense this must be a gala occasion."
"That's all, folks; I'm certain." Bill shouted the school yell and the class year: "Umpah, umpah, ho, ho; it's up to you, Fairview, 1922!" Then: "Bring 'em all back here, Gus."
But not one of them needed urging nor reminding. Separating themselves from the rapidly diminishing and retreating audience came Ted, Terry, Cora, Dot, Grace, with Skeets as a guest, Bert Haskell, Mary Dean, Lem Upsall, Walt Maynard, Lucy Shore and Sara Fortescue, the entire bunch eagerly attentive. They crowded around Bill and Gus and were well aware of the purpose.
"Sure, we'll all be here, I'll bet a cow!" shouted Ted.
"Dot and I could listen in on our own radio," said Cora. "We've got it finished and it works fine and dandy, Billy. We want you and Gus and everybody to come over and try it. But we'll join in with the class on this; eh, Dot?"
"Sure will," agreed Dot. "Ours is only a crystal set, but it has some improvements you boys haven't seen. Wait till we get it all done, and we'll give you a spread and a surprise."
"Say, Bill, this thing's great," Terry said. "Father is going to get me an outfit in the city and I'll pay you and Gus to set it up for—"
"Set it up yourself, you lazy thing!" said Cora.
"If you please, miss, I've got other matters—"
"All right, Terry,—see you later about it. Now, listen, hopefuls. You'll all be here, but this occasion is going to be incomplete, unless we have a lot more on deck. We all want to get out, and scout round and fetch in every kid that wants to amount to anything at all and is big enough to understand and appreciate what's going on. And even then it won't be quite up to snuff unless—"
"I know! You want Mr. Hooper here, too!" shouted Skeets. But in trying to rise to make herself heard, she upset her chair and then sat down on the floor, jarring the building. When the shout of mirth subsided, Bill said:
"That's right. Mr. Hooper and Professor Gray. We'll have to tell them about it."
"Father wrote that he's coming home to-night," announced Grace proudly.
"Great shakes! Did he? Gus, get on the 'phone and find out!" Bill commanded. "Now, then, let's all get busy and——"
"Righto, Billy, but what will our folks think has become of us when it's so late?" Dot questioned.
"I move we go into executive session!" shouted Walt Maynard.
"Sure, and the president of the class can call a meeting," said Terry
Watkins.
"It's up to you then, Billy," Cora agreed.
"I call it. Come to order and dispense with the minutes, Miss Secretary," Billy grinned at Dot. "Motion in order to send a committee to inform all the girls' parents."
"I make that motion," said Bert.
"Second it. The boys' parents can get wise by radio," asserted Ted.
"Bert and Ted appointed. Get out and get busy!" Bill was no joke as an executive. "Here's Gus. Did you get Mrs. Hooper?"
"I sure did. Mr. Hooper got home an hour ago."
"Glory!" Grace, you're driving your little runabout? I appoint Grace and Mary a committee to go and get Mr. and Mrs. Hooper here right off. No objections? Don't fail, Grace, or we'll send the entire bunch."
"We'll fetch him," laughed Grace as she and Mary hurried out.
"Now then, everybody else, including the chair, is appointed a committee to bring in every boy and girl in the town who will come. Work fast! I wonder if we could promise some eats." Bill glanced at Terry.
"Yes; tell them there'll be refreshments!" shouted the rich boy. "It'll be my treat. Bill, make me a committee of one to hive the grub. Cakes, candy, bananas and ice cream; eh?"
"Done!" declared Bill. "Go to it, with the class's blessing!"
"Yes and Heaven's best on Terry Watkins," said Cora.
In a moment the hall was empty. Twenty minutes later the Hooper party arrived and about three minutes thereafter who should appear but Professor Gray, hurried, eager, registering disappointment when he saw the empty room, then smiling as the Hoopers and Mary Dean came to greet him.
"I had hoped to find my class here," he began and was interrupted by the thump of Bill's crutch on the steps without. Forgetting his support the boy leaped, rather than limped, forward, followed more sedately by several lads and lasses he had rounded up.
"If this isn't the best thing that ever happened!" shouted Bill, grasping the hands of the two men held out to him. "Both of you! And you, too, Mrs. Hooper. Great! Just got back, Professor! And now we're going to get the very thing we talked about, Mr. Hooper: we're going to hear Mr. Edison's voice or that of his right-hand man, nearly three hundred miles away. The rest of the bunch will be here in a minute. I expect Gus and Ted and Cora to fetch in a few dozen besides. Hello, here's Terry with the eats."