With the coming of the school principal and the certainty that the
threatened row was over, for the present at least, all Buck Looker's
usual truculence returned.
"It's lucky for you that Preston happened to turn up just now," he
snarled. "I was just getting ready to give you the licking of your
life."
"I noticed that," said Joe dryly, as he picked up his books. "Only
instead of doing it with your fists, you were going to do it with your
books, like the coward that you are. You gave yourself away that time,
Buck. It isn't necessary for any one to show you up. You can be depended
on to do that job yourself."
By this time the principal was only a few yards away, and Buck and his
friends walked away rapidly, while Bob and Joe followed more slowly, so
that Mr. Preston soon caught up with them.
"Good afternoon, boys," he said, as he came abreast of them. "You seemed
to be a little excited about something."
"Yes, we were having a little argument," admitted Joe.
The principal looked at them sharply and waited as though he expected to
hear more. But as nothing further was said, he did not press the matter.
If the trouble had taken place in the school or on the school premises,
he would have felt it his duty to go to the bottom of the affair. But he
had no jurisdiction here, and he was too wise a man to mix in things
that did not directly concern him or his work.
"Well, how goes radio?" he asked, changing the subject. "Are you boys
just as enthusiastic over it as you were the night you won the Ferberton
prizes?"
"More so than ever," replied Bob, and Joe confirmed this with a nod of
the head. "It's getting so that almost every minute we have out of
school we're either tinkering with our set or listening in. We've just
finished putting up a new umbrella aerial, and it's a dandy."
"I use that kind myself," said Mr. Preston. "I get better results with
it than I do with anything else."
"Why, are you a radio enthusiast, too?" asked Bob, in some surprise. "I
didn't have any idea you were interested in it."
"Oh, yes," affirmed the principal, with a smile. "I'm one of the great
and constantly increasing army of radio fans. I understand there are
more than a million of them in the United States now, and their ranks
are being swelled by thousands with every day that passes. I use it for
my own personal pleasure and for that of my family, but I also have an
interest in it because of my profession."
"I understand it's becoming quite a feature in education," remarked Joe.
"It certainly is," replied Mr. Preston. "Many colleges and high schools
now have radio classes as a regular part of their course. College
professors give lectures that go by radio to thousands where formerly
they were heard by scores. I've been thinking of a plan that might be of
help in the geography classes, for instance. Suppose some great lecturer
or traveler who has been in faraway lands should give a travel talk from
some broadcasting station. Then while he was describing China, for
instance, we might have moving pictures thrown on a screen in the
classroom showing Chinese cities and customs and types. Both the eye and
the ear would be taught at the same time, and in a most interesting way,
it seems to me. What do you think of the idea?"
"Fine," said Bob.
"Dandy," agreed Joe. "There wouldn't be any lack of interest in those
classes. The boys would be eager to have the time for them come."
"Well," smiled Mr. Preston, "it's only an idea as yet, but it's
perfectly feasible and I shouldn't be surprised to see it in general use
in a year or two."
He turned into a side street just then with a pleasant good-bye, and the
boys went on their way together, picking up Jimmy, who was just emerging
from a store.
"What was Mr. Preston talking to you about?" asked Jimmy, with some
curiosity, for he had witnessed the parting. "Hauling you over the
coals, was he, for something you've done or haven't done?"
"Nothing like that," replied Joe. "We just found out that he is a radio
fan like the rest of us."
"Funny, isn't it, how that thing is spreading?" murmured Jimmy musingly.
"You couldn't throw a stone now without hitting somebody who is
interested in radio."
"All the same, I wish he hadn't caught up to us when he did," grumbled
Joe. "I was just going to mix it with Buck Looker when he came along."
"Buck has lots of luck," commented Jimmy. "Tell me all about it."
They told him all the details of the meeting, and became so engrossed in
it that they almost ran into Dr. Dale, who was just coming up from the
railroad station.
He greeted them with great cordiality, which met with quite as hearty a
response on their part, for the minister was a prime favorite with them
and they always felt at their ease with him. There was nothing prim or
professional about him, and his influence among the young people was
unbounded.
He chatted with them for a few minutes until they reached Bob's gate.
"Won't you come up on the porch for a few minutes, Doctor?" asked Bob.
"There are some things we'd like to ask you about radio."
"Certainly I will," replied the doctor, with a smile. "There's not much
that I'd rather talk about. In fact, I was just about to tell you of an
interesting experience that I had this very afternoon."
He went with the boys up the steps and dropped into the chair that Bob
drew up for him.
"Tell us about that first, Doctor," urged Bob. "Our questions can come
afterward."
"I just had the luck to get on a train coming home that had a car
attached to it where they were trying out a new radio system," replied
the minister. "I heard about it from the conductor, whom I know very
well, and he arranged it so that I could go into the car where they were
making the experiments. They had a radio set in there with a horn, and
the set was connected with an aerial on the roof of the car. They sent
out signals to various stations while the train was going along at the
rate of forty miles an hour, and got replies that we could hear as
plainly as though one of the people in the car were talking to the
others. The whole thing was a complete success, and one of the officials
of the road who happened to be in the party told me that the express
trains on the road were going to be equipped with it.
"Of course, if one road does that, it will not be any time before all
the others will, too. It'll not be long before we can be sitting in a
car traveling, let us say from New York to Albany, and chat with a
friend who may be on another train traveling between Chicago and Denver.
Or if a business man has started from New York to Chicago and happens to
remember something important in his office he can call up his manager
and give him directions just the same as though he pressed a buzzer and
called him in from the next room."
"It sounds like magic," remarked Bob, drawing a long breath.
"If we'd even talked about such things a few hundred years ago we'd have
been burned at the stake as wizards," laughed the doctor.
"The most important thing about this railroad development," he went on,
"is not the convenience it may be in social and business life, but in
the prevention of accidents. As it is now, after a train leaves a
station it can't get any orders or information until it gets to the next
station. A train may be coming toward it head on, or another train ahead
of it and going in the same direction may be stalled. Often in the first
case orders have come to the station agent to hold a train until another
one has passed. But the station agent gets the message just a minute too
late, and the train has already left the station and is rushing on to
its fate. Then all the agent can do is to shudder and wait for news of
the crash. With the radio equipment he can call up the train, tell of
the danger, and direct it to come back.
"Or take the second case where a train is stopped by some accident and
knows that another train is coming behind it on the same track and is
due in a few minutes. All they can do now is to send back a man with a
red flag to stop the second train. But it may be foggy or dark, and the
engineer of the second train doesn't see the flags and comes plunging on
into the first train. With the radio, the instant a train is halted for
any reason, it can send a message to the second train telling just where
it is and warning of the danger. Hundreds have been killed and millions
of dollars in property have been lost in the past just because of the
old conditions. With the radio installed on trains, that sort of thing
will be made almost impossible in the future.
"But there," he said, with a smile, "I came up here to answer your
questions, and I've been doing all the talking. Now just what is it you
wanted to ask me about radio?"