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 their seats 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," a.s.sented 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 who does," 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. Taking 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 a.s.sistant, as he was too busy to take them around himself.

Mr. Reed, the a.s.sistant, did not appear particularly pleased with his a.s.signment at first, but when he found that the boys were well grounded in radio, his att.i.tude 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 get some 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 pa.s.sed, receiving a vastly greater amplification from each, until from the final one it climbed into the antenna and was flung into s.p.a.ce. 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 were amplified immeasurably in power and then pa.s.sed on to the other tube, which in turn pa.s.sed 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 on the 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 radio work 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."

CHAPTER XXIII

THE 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 cla.s.s 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. Besides, 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?"