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“Look at his pockets and you’ll find the answer,” said Joe, pointing to suspicious bulges in Jimmy’s jacket pockets.
“That’s all the credit a fellow gets when he tries to be generous,” complained Jimmy, in an aggrieved tone, as he emptied the pockets in question of half a dozen doughnuts. “Here I wait until the doughnuts are made so that I can bring along a lot for you fellows, and what do I get? Nothing but abuse. I was just crazy to help you fellows put up that aerial, but I sacrificed my own feelings and waited for the doughnuts so that you could have some.”
“Those doughnuts were cooking three hours ago,” retorted Joe.
“How do you know?” asked Jimmy.
“Because I smelled them as I came past your house,” replied Joe.
“Oh, that was the first batch,” explained Jimmy. “Most of those have gone by now.”
“What became of them?” grinned Bob.
“How do I know?” countered Jimmy. “My father and mother have pretty good appetites. Then of course I sampled one or two. Mother would have thought I didn’t like her cooking if I hadn’t. And if there’s anything I won’t do it’s to hurt my mother’s feelings. We never have more than one mother, you know,” he added virtuously.
“Sampled one or two!” sniffed Joe. “One or two dozen you mean.”
“How did you fellows come to get in such a fix?” queried Herb. “Did the ladder fall down?”
“It did not,” returned Bob with emphasis. “It was taken down while we weren’t looking by somebody who wanted to play a trick on us. And I can come pretty near to guessing who did it, too,” he added.
“Why not come right out with it?” said Joe, his face flushing with indignation. “It was Buck Looker and his gang who did it. I’m just as sure of it as though I had seen them. It’s no thanks to them that I’m not dead or a cripple this minute.”
“That explains something that Jimmy and I noticed just before we came up,” said Herb eagerly. “We saw Buck and Lutz hot-footing it down one street and Terry Mooney down another. I thought they were having a race around the block or something like that.”
“That just proves what I said,” declared Joe. “They were waiting around to gloat over the hole they thought they had put us in. Then when they saw that one or both of us were going to be smashed on the rocks and perhaps killed, they got scared and lit out so as to be as far away as possible when the thing happened. Then they couldn’t be suspected of being mixed up in it. It’s all as clear as daylight, and it adds another tally to the score we have against those fellows.”
“Oh, well, a yellow dog is a yellow dog, and he acts according to his nature,” said Bob. “But now since you fellows are here, come up the ladder and take a look at the aerial and see what kind of job we’ve made of it.”
Herb and Jimmy followed him up the ladder and were loud in their praises of the new contrivance.
“Couldn’t have done it better myself,” said Jimmy patronizingly. “I didn’t worry about my not being here, for I had the fullest confidence in you and Joe. I knew you’d get it up all right.”
He avoided the pass that Bob made at him, and after the boys had gathered up the tools and left everything shipshape, they came down the ladder and rejoined their comrade.
“I guess it’s home for us now,” said Herb.
“And mighty glad I am that none of us has to be carried home,” put in Bob.
“You bet,” remarked Joe, as he rose to go. “Do you remember what you said, Bob, about finishing that job if it took a leg? Well, it came pretty near to taking one – or two – or perhaps even worse than that.”
CHAPTER III – MARVELS OF RADIO
“Don’t forget now,” Bob reminded them, as his friends passed out of the gate on the way to their respective homes. “Be over at the house a little before eight, for the concert begins at eight o’clock sharp, and there aren’t many things in it that we want to miss. It’s the best program that I’ve seen for a month past. There’s violin music and band marches and opera selections and a bit of jazz mixed in.”
“Sounds as if it were going to be the cat’s whiskers,” said Jimmy.
“Jimmy, I’m ashamed of you,” said Bob, with mock severity. “When are you going to leave off using that horrible slang?”
“He might at least have said the ‘feline’s hirsute adornments,’” muttered Joe. “That would have been a little more dignified. But dignity and Jimmy parted company a long time ago.”
“I didn’t know they’d ever met,” remarked Herb. “But if they were ‘lovers once they’re strangers now.’”
“I shook it when I found that it wasn’t good to eat,” said the graceless Jimmy, nowise abashed. “But you fellows had better stop picking on me or it’ll be good-bye to any more doughnuts.”
They laughed and parted with another admonition by Bob to be on time. He himself went into the house and solaced himself with the cold bath and change of clothes that he had been promising himself all through that hot afternoon. A brisk rubdown with a rough towel did wonders, and by the time his mother returned he was feeling in as good shape as ever, with the exception of a touch of lameness in the right arm that had been subjected to such an unusual strain that day.
There were grave looks on the faces of both his parents as, at the supper table, he narrated the events of the afternoon. Mingled with their gratitude at his and Joe’s escape from injury, was a feeling of deep indignation against the probable authors of the trick.
“That Buck Looker is one of the worst if not the very worst boy in town!” ejaculated Mr. Layton. “There’s hardly a week goes by without hearing something mean or rowdyish with which he’s mixed up. He’s the kind of boy that criminals are made of after they grow up.”
“One might have overlooked the taking down of the ladder in itself,” commented Mrs. Layton; “but the contemptible part was in running away instead of running to help when he saw that the boys were in danger of being crippled or killed. He and his cronies could have got the ladder up in time, for they knew of the danger before Herb and Jimmy did. But he’d have let the boys be killed rather than take a chance of himself being blamed. That shows the stuff the boy is made of.”
“Pretty poor stuff, I’m afraid,” agreed Bob. “But, after all, Mother, here I am safe and sound, and all’s well that ends well.”
By a quarter to eight that evening the boys began to come, and even the tardy Jimmy was on hand before the time scheduled for the concert to begin. In addition to the pleasure they anticipated from the unusually fine program, they were keenly curious to learn what improvement, if any, had been made by the installation of the umbrella aerial.
They were not long left in doubt. From the very first tuning in there was an increase in the clearness and volume of the sound that surpassed all their expectations. The opening number chanced to be a violin solo, played by a master of the instrument. It represented a dance of the fairies and called for such rapid transitions up and down the scale as to form a veritable cascade of rippling notes, following each other with almost inconceivable swiftness. And yet so clearly was each note reproduced, so distinctly was each delicate shading of the melody indicated, that the player might have been in the next room or even in the same room behind a screen.
The boys and the others were delighted. They listened spellbound, and when in a glorious burst of what might have been angel music the selection ended, the lads clapped their hands in enthusiastic applause.
“That’s what you can call music!” ejaculated Bob.
“That player knows what he’s about,” was Herb’s tribute.
“And how perfectly we heard every note,” cried Joe. “We certainly made a ten strike, Bob, when we rigged up that new aerial. It’s got the other beaten twenty ways.”
“I guess you’re right about that,” said Jimmy. “I don’t grudge a minute of the time you spent this afternoon in putting it up. It was worth all the trouble.”
Bob looked hard at him, but Jimmy was as sober as a judge, and before either Bob or Joe could frame a suitable retort the crashing notes of a military band came to their ears and put from them the thought of anything else. It was a medley that the band played, composed of well-known airs ranging from “Hail Columbia” to “Dixie” and so inspiring was it that the boys’ hands were moving and their feet jigging in time with the music all through the performance.
For fully two hours they sat entranced through a varied program that included things so dissimilar as famous grand opera selections, the plaintive melodies of Hawaiian guitars, and some jazz, and when at last the list was ended the boys sat back with a sigh of satisfaction, their faces flushed and their eyes shining.
“Ever hear anything like it?” asked Bob, as he relaxed into his chair and took off his ear pieces.
“It’s the best ever!” declared Joe. “And to think that we can have something like it almost any night we choose, and all of that without going out of this room!”
“That’s the beauty of it,” Bob assented. “To hear a concert that included such fine talent as that we’d have to go to New York. That would mean all the time and trouble of dressing up, the long ride on the railroad train, the getting back home at two or three o’clock in the morning, to say nothing of the ten dollars apiece or thereabouts that we’d have to pay for train fare and tickets for the concert. For us four that would mean about forty dollars. Now we haven’t paid forty cents, not even one cent, we haven’t had to dress, we’ve sat around here lazy and comfy, we can go to bed whenever we like, and we’ve had the concert just the same. And what we did to-night we can do any night. I tell you, fellows, we haven’t begun yet to realize what a wonderful thing this radio is. It’s simply a miracle.”
“Right you are,” agreed Joe. “And just remember that what’s true of us four is true of four thousand or perhaps four hundred thousand. Take the biggest concert hall in the United States and perhaps it will hold five thousand. When it’s full, everybody else has to stay away. But there’s no staying away with radio. And every one has as good a seat as any one else. Think where that concert’s been heard to-night. People out as far as Chicago and Detroit have heard it. They’ve listened to it on board of ships out at sea. In lonely farmhouses people have enjoyed it. Men sitting around campfires up in the Adirondacks have had receivers at their ears. Sick people and cripples lying on their beds have been cheered by it. Lonely people in hotel rooms far away from home have found pleasure in it. There’s absolutely no limit to what the radio can do. It seems to me that it throws in the shade everything else that’s ever been invented.”
“You haven’t put it a bit too strong,” chimed in Herb. “But talking about a lot of people hearing it makes me think that perhaps we fellows have been a bit selfish.”
“What do you mean?” asked Jimmy in some surprise. “It isn’t so long ago that we got the old folks and sick folks together and gave them a concert at Doctor Dale’s house – Joel Banks and Aunty Bixby and the rest of them.”
“I don’t mean that,” explained Herb. “That was all right as far as it went, and I hope we’ll do it soon again. But what I have in mind are our own folks and our friends. Our fathers and mothers haven’t heard much of this concert to-night, and there are some of the fellows that we might have invited in.”
“But we have only four sets of ear pieces,” objected Jimmy. “I suppose of course we could attach a few more – ”
“I get Herb’s idea,” interrupted Bob, “and it’s a good one. He thinks that we ought to have a loud-speaker – a horn that would fill the room with sound and do away with the ear pieces altogether.”
“You hit the bull’s-eye the first time,” Herb conceded. “In other words, instead of having a concert for four have it for fourteen or forty.”
CHAPTER IV – FACING THE BULLY
The radio boys ruminated over Herb’s suggestion for a little while.
“The idea itself is all right,” pronounced Joe slowly, “but the trouble is that we couldn’t do it very well with this set, which is the best we’ve been able to make so far. We can hear the sound that comes over the wire well with these earpieces glued to our ears, but the sound would be lost if it were spread all over the room.”
“Wouldn’t the horn help out on that?” asked Herb.
“Not by itself, it wouldn’t,” answered Bob. “It’s a mistake to think that the horn itself makes the sound or increases its loudness. The only use of the horn is to act as a relay for the diaphragm of the receiver and connect it with the air in the room. But the sound itself must first be in the receiver. And with a crystal detector, such as we’re using in this set, I’m afraid that we couldn’t get volume of sound enough. It would be spread out over the room so thinly that no one would be able to hear anything. We’ll have to amplify the sound, and to do that there’s nothing better than a vacuum tube. That’s the best thing that the world has discovered so far.”
“I guess it is,” remarked Jimmy. “Doctor Dale has one in his set.”
“Yes,” chimed in Joe. “He even has more than one. The more there are the louder and clearer the sound.”
“I don’t suppose we could make one,” Herb remarked.
“No; that’s one thing that costs real money,” replied Bob. “But don’t let that bother you. I’ve got quite a lot left of that hundred dollars of the Ferberton prize, and there’s nothing I’d rather spend it for than to improve the radio set.”
“Count me in on that, too,” said Joe. “I’ve scarcely touched my fifty.”
“How about the horn?” queried Jimmy. “Will that have to be bought, too?”
“No,” replied Bob. “That’s something you can make. That is, if you’re not too tired from the work you did on setting up the aerial this afternoon.”
“But,” objected Jimmy, ignoring the gibe, “I don’t know anything about working in tin or steel. I haven’t any tools for that.”
“The horn doesn’t have to be made of metal,” answered Bob. “In fact, it’s better if it’s not. Some horns are even made of concrete – ”
“Use your head for that, Jimmy,” broke in Herb irreverently.
“But best of all,” Bob continued, while Jimmy favored the interrupter with a glare, “is to make the horn of wood. Take some good hard wood, like mahogany or maple, polish the inside with sandpaper after you’ve hollowed it out, give it a coat of varnish or shellac, and you’ll have a horn that can’t be beaten. It’s very simple.”
“Sure!” said Jimmy sarcastically. “Very simple! Just like that! Simple when you say it quick. Simple as the fellow that tells me how to do it.”
“Just imagine you’re hollowing out a doughnut,” put in Joe, grinning. “You’re an expert at that.”
“I’ll tell the world he is,” agreed Herb, with enthusiasm.
“That reminds me,” said Bob, “that there’s some pie in the pantry and sarsaparilla in the ice-box that mother told me to pass around among you fellows. That is, of course, if you care for it,” he added, as he paused in seeming doubt.
“If we care for it!” cried Jimmy, the creases of perplexity in his brow disappearing as if by magic. “Lead me to that pie. I’ll fall on its neck like a long-lost brother.”
“It’ll fall into your neck, you mean,” chuckled Herb, and in less than two minutes saw his prophecy verified.
“And now,” said Bob, after the last crumb and drop had disappeared, “I don’t want to tie the can to you fellows, but I hear dad moving around and locking up, and that’s a sign to skiddoo. We’ll think over that idea of Herb’s and get a tip from Doctor Dale as to the best way to go about it.”
There was a chorus of hearty good-nights and the radio boys separated.
Two days later, as Bob and Joe were coming home from school, the latter, looking behind him, gave vent to an exclamation that drew Bob’s attention.
“What’s up?” he asked, turning his head in the same direction.
“It’s Buck Looker and his bunch!” exclaimed Joe, a flush mounting to his brow and his eyes beginning to flame. “He’s been careful to keep out of my way so far. Let’s wait here until he catches up to us.”
“You’ll wait a long time then, I guess,” replied Bob, “for he’s seen us, too, and he’s slowing up already. He doesn’t seem a bit anxious to overtake us.”
“Then we’ll have to go back and meet him,” said Joe grimly. “I’m going to have it out with him right here and now. He needn’t think he’s going to get away scot free after the trick he played on me.”
“What’s the use, Joe?” counseled Bob. “You can’t prove it on him and he’ll only lie out of it. It’s bad policy to kick a skunk.”
But Joe had already turned and was striding rapidly back toward Buck and his companions, and Bob went along with him.
There was a hurried confabulation between Buck and his cronies as they saw Bob and Joe advancing toward them, and a hasty looking from side to side, as though to seek some means of escape. But there was no street handy to turn into, and as it would have been too rank a confession of cowardice to turn their backs and run, the trio assumed a defiant attitude and waited the approach of the swiftly moving couple.
Joe stopped directly in front of the bully, while Bob ranged alongside, keeping a sharp watch on the movements of Lutz and Mooney.
“Why did you take down that ladder the other afternoon, Buck Looker?” asked Joe, looking his opponent straight in the eye.
Buck’s look shifted before Joe’s gaze, but he affected ignorance.
“What ladder and what afternoon?” he countered, sparring for time. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, and for that matter I guess you don’t either.”
“I know perfectly well what I’m talking about, and so do you,” replied Joe, coming so near to him that Buck gave ground. “You and your gang took away the ladder from the side of Bob’s barn, and in trying to get down I nearly broke my neck.”
“Pity you didn’t,” blustered Buck. “If your ladder fell down and you didn’t have sense enough to wait for some one to come along and put it up for you, that wasn’t any fault of mine. I wasn’t anywhere near Layton’s barn that whole afternoon.”
“We know better,” said Joe. “Bob and I saw you going along the street a little while before we missed the ladder, and Herb Fennington and Jimmy Plummer saw you and your crowd running away like mad while I was hanging to the pipe alongside the barn.”
“You shut up!” yelled Buck, in a burst of rage.
“Take off your coat, Buck Looker,” cried Joe, dropping his books to the ground, “and I’ll give you the same kind of a trimming that Bob gave you the night you tried to wreck his aerial.”
For answer Buck tightened his grip on the strap that held his books.
“You stand back, Joe Atwood,” he cried, with a quaver in his voice, “or I’ll soak you with these books!”
Joe laughed his disdain.
“You coward!” he exclaimed, and was springing forward when a warning exclamation came from Bob.
“Stop, Joe,” he commanded. “Here comes Mr. Preston.”
A look of vexation came into Joe’s eyes and a look of relief into Buck’s as they looked and saw the principal of the high school walking rapidly toward them.
CHAPTER V – A BIG ADVANCE
