Radio Boys Loyalty Part 3

CHAPTER VI

ANOTHER FELLOW

It was in and over the work of the boys' shop that Bill and Gus first met the Italian student. Among the upper cla.s.smen they had noticed a small, olive-skinned, black-eyed chap, with a rather solemn face, who appeared to be very reticent. It was said that he was a close and a bright student who, though not lacking for money, took little interest in sports, belonging only to the "bruisers," as the boxing cla.s.s was called. One afternoon, with Gandy, who was getting a radio set made, the stranger appeared and stood in the doorway, gazing at the busy workers.

At first neither of the radio experts saw him. Then he advanced.

"I have the desire very much to make for myself complete a radio getter--ah--what you call? Yes, a receiver." He addressed Gus, who was laying out the hook-up for a crystal set.

"There's nothing very hard about it," Gus replied, looking up with his ready smile and scrutinizing the Italian boy.

"You pay the right here, the privilege; is that not so?"

"Yes, we rent the room," said Gus.

"Ah, so; but I mean--" The newcomer turned partly toward Bill who drew near at the moment and had overheard the question.

"You mean we charge those who work here? Yes, for the use of our tools and machines, but not for any hints and advice we can give. The school shop is at your mercy, too, without charge, as you know." Bill also sized up his questioner with a certain curiosity and was pleasantly impressed.

"I do not like the school shop. There are so very many con--con--what you call it? Yes, conflicting. I should like--prefer--choose to come here, if I may do so."

"Come along. You keep account of your own time here, and you can pay us when you like. You can get your own materials, or we can get them for you at the prices we pay. We bought up some old pieces of furniture cheap to cut up for bases and cabinets--enough walnut to make a hundred.

No charge for it. Help yourself."

"You are, I wish to say it, veree liber--kind--generous. It is too little that you pay--charge, I mean it. I will ask for your materials and I will commence--begin--start, eh? on to-morrow. Will that be satisfy?"

"Any old time. If we are not here, walk in and go to it. Check your hours up on this pad, see? What is your name?"

"Anthony Sabaste it is. I am called Tony by most. My country it is Italy, but American I now am. My father is of the city--living there.

Here, now, I will pay you five dollars on acc----"

"No, you won't," said Bill. "We'd rather have you pay after a while and you can see that the work goes all right. Here, I'll show you the ropes."

"Ropes? But I care not to make--build a s.h.i.+p. It is a radio----"

"Oh, sure, I get you; but that's only slang. You have been here long enough, I should guess from your talk, to get on to our American guff.

Well, we're glad to know you, Mr.----"

"Sabaste, but I best like--I prefer calling me Tony. It means in your language, I get on to it, as fine, grand, fat--no--but swell out--somebody much, eh?"

"It does, sure! I'll introduce my partner, Augustus Grier; Gus for short, or he'll get mad. They call me Bill Brown, generally forgetting the Brown, even here at school, where 'most everyone gets his last name.

First names are more friendly."

"I like it, too. In my native it is more mostly Signor, even to young--what you call it? Kids, as us, eh?" Tony smiled genially, his face lighting up most agreeably. "Some they call me 'Wop,' or 'Sphagetti'."

The boys learned that the intelligent young foreigner was in the graduating cla.s.s which had escaped a lot of practical radio work; that he kept much to himself, either because of a real or fancied notion that social lines might be drawn against him, or because he was naturally unsocial. But after he began the making of a radio set and came in daily contact with Bill and Gus, the young Italian seemed to grow a little out of himself, becoming less reticent and secluded. The good fellows.h.i.+p of two lads a little younger than he, both giving him friends.h.i.+p and confidence, laughing at his errors of speech in perfect good nature and without ridicule, and at their own foibles as well, compelled the Italian boy to like the country of his adoption much better than he had before. This he expressed to Gus:

"You like me--no, I mean I you like. Yes, that is making to laugh, eh?

Funny, very. Well, I mean to say it, you and Bill very much also. Why not? You love the live. You love the study. You make the happiness. You have the great--the large, eh? the big heart. All to you is nice and fine and it is equal to the doing, but you say it, it is worth the while. This makes good-will and kind thoughts to others, also by others--no; from others. You are like one _dolce_ picture in my home. It is by two little birds fabricating their nest and all the time thus they are of song, singing, gay with living and working, helping so much always also to make all the country, this old world happy and satisfy--content. So, to my--to me, you are really it, eh? You are the real thing."

"If Bill had heard you say all this, Tony, he'd declare you're both an orator and a poet," said Gus, laughing.

"And neither am I. But of my country there are many of such, and of learning also, science, the great learning. Many large men of the yesterday and many of the to-day also. In this work, too, the first, for is not Marconi----"

"Say that name to Bill and hear him shout some praises."

"So? And will Bill speak good--n.o.ble--high of Signor Marconi? Then I, too, can speak n.o.ble of Signor Edison, the American. But what say now if I can tell it to you that my father, he is one sure and big friend of Signor Marconi. Our home, in Italia, what you call--the estate of us, it is not much a great distance from Signor Marconi of his estate. Often I have seen him. And so you understand?"

"By cracky! Radio must have been in the air over there and you caught it!" declared Gus. "n.o.body could have it down any more pat than you have. Bill and I have got some dandy ideas from you."

"That we have," agreed Bill, thumping in. "What is it now, Gus, that our friend----"

"Why, Bill, Tony knows Marconi! Just telling me about it." And Gus went on briefly to repeat that which the Italian had related. Bill, to use a terse but slangy term, proceeded to go up in the air.

"Why, holy cats, Tony, you are from henceforth the cheese! This school has gone wireless mad,--you know that,--and the country is pretty much in the same fix, and for the reason that radio is about the biggest thing in the world. And, fellows, this just fits. We are doing things--everybody is--in radio and now we are going--this school is going--to honor the situation if we can start it that way. For, fellows, Marconi's yacht, the _Elettra_, is in New York Harbor, with Marconi on board most of the time. And Tony, we'll get Doctor Field to let us have a whack at the transmitter and you can talk to your friend, or telegraph your dad and have him come up and radiophone Marconi. And then we'll listen in for his reply, for I've read he's awfully fine and good-natured. Isn't that so?"

"It is so, sure and indeed!" declared the Italian youth. "I am overenjoyed; you say so, eh? that we shall do this. Let us now go, upon this moment, and talk to the good doctor. There will be no lecturing at this time over the casting abroad----"

"The broadcasting transmitter? No, we can surely get a whack at it."

CHAPTER VII

MESSAGES

Doctor Field, much interested, accompanied the boys to the school broadcasting room, and after determining from some data at hand the wave lengths that would be receivable on the Marconi yacht, Tony began talking earnestly, almost too rapidly, into the horn, the crack and buzzing of the battery charges making a sound like that of a rifle gallery. The president, Bill and Gus also had receiving 'phones clamped to their ears.

"If he doesn't mind, you might ask him to reply in English, please,"

requested the Doctor, and Tony nodded.

And presently a reply did come, though in Italian. Tony got it, at some little length; then with a gesture of disappointment he turned to the others:

"It is an attend--an a.s.sister. He informs me that the wireless wizard, Signor Marconi, whom I explain is a friend to me and my family and he know our name, that the signor is away on the earth--no, on land, you say it,--attends some occasion, or is entertain of American friends and he will not return this many hour. So that it is no value, or you say useless, to cast wide to him again now at this moment and I am, as you say, deject?"

They all laughed and cheered Tony with the a.s.surance that there would be another occasion. Then Bill offered his idea to the president:

"Doctor, we have a notion that this radio business right now ought to have a sort of celebration 'most everywhere; and our school might set the example. Radio is getting to be an awfully big thing, nearly as big as the movies. And now here's Marconi. Couldn't we start a general hurrah for radio, bring the apparatus down to the a.s.sembly room, have a big concert, send out some messages and get Tony here, who knows Marconi, to give us a talk on the inventor of the wireless when he was a boy, and that sort of thing? Of course, if this would interfere with studies, or----"

"It need not, Brown, it need not in the least," agreed the president. "I like your idea immensely and I foresee some features that we can add.

Suppose we fix it for the latter part of this week, handbill it in the town also and make it a gala occasion. It is another way of calling attention to the school and the kind of work we do here. You will all help Professor Grant and the janitor with the mechanical details, which should not take long. And if Sabaste will communicate with Marconi so as to make sure we can get a message from him, that will be the climax."

The idea proved immensely popular. There are many such plans for calling students together to instil interest in various things that prove "wet blankets" when put into operation, but radio, as elsewhere, had taken the school by storm. Separate departments had been organized this year for it. It was equally an interesting plaything and a source of mental gymnastics. It was a matter of curiosity, and not to be interested, was to be out of the swim.

Bill got busy, as hardly ever before in his strenuous career. Because of his uncertain English, Tony balked at giving an address on Marconi, so Bill copied facts and wrote the whole thing out for Tony to memorize, putting in many of the Italian's phrases, corrected. And getting the _Elettra_ again, Marconi's former and youthful neighbor was able to make a date for a message from the wireless wizard on the evening of the radio celebration.