"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."