THE DOUBTERS
The party was on the point of breaking up, with much laughter over the
embarrassment of poor Gus, when Skeets unexpectedly furnished further
entertainment. She had paused to lean comfortably against a center
table, but its easy rolling casters objected to her weight, rolled away
hastily and deposited her without warning on the floor. Ted, who
gallantly helped her to her feet, remarked, with a grunt due to extreme
effort, that she really might as well stand up or enlist the entire four
legs of a chair to support her.
Bill, about to take leave of the host and hostess, felt a slight jerk at
his sleeve and looking round was surprised to find Thad at his elbow.
The youth said in a low voice:
"Want to see you out yonder among the trees. Give the rest the slip. Got
a pipe of an idea."
Bill nodded, wondering much. A moment later Mr. Hooper was repeating
that he was proud of the work done by the boys and glad that he had
trusted them. Then he added:
"But say, young feller, much as I believe in you and Gus, seein' your
smartness, I got to doubt all that there bunk you give them young people
'bout that there what you call radier. I been borned a long time--goin'
on to seventy year now,--an' I seen all sorts of contraptions like
reapers an' binders, ridin' plows, typewritin'-machines, telephones,
phonygraphs, flyin'-machines, submarines an' all such, but b'jinks, I
ain't a-believin' that nobody kin hear jes' common talk through the air
without no wires. An' hundreds o' miles! 'Tain't natch'all an' 'taint
possible now, is it?"
"Why, yes, Mr. Hooper; it's both poss--"
"Come on, Billy! Good-night, Mr. Hooper and Mrs. Hooper. We all had a
dandy time." And Bill was led away. But he was able, by hanging back a
little, to whisper to Gus that he was on the track of something from
Thad,--for Bill could only think that the young man would make a
confession or commit himself in some way.
"See you in the morning," he added and turned back.
Thad was waiting and called to Bill from his seat on a bench beneath the
shade of a big maple. The fellow plunged at once into his subject,
evidently holding the notion that youth in general possesses a shady
sense of honor.
"See here, Brown. I think I get you and I believe you've got wit enough
to get Uncle Hooper. Did he say anything to you as you came out about
being shy on this radio business?"
Bill nodded.
"Say, he don't believe it's any more possible than a horse car can turn
into a buzzard! Fact! He told me you fellows might fool him on a lot of
things and that you were awful smart for kids, but he'd be hanged for a
quarter of beef if you could make him swallow this bunk about talking
through the air. You know the way he talks."
"I think he can and will be convinced," said Bill, "and you can't blame
him for his notion, for he has never chanced to inquire about radio and
I expect he doesn't read that department in the paper. If he meets a
plain statement about radio broadcasting or receiving, it either makes
no impression on him, or he regards it as a sort of joke. But, anyway,
what of it?"
"Why, just this and you ought to catch on to it without being told:
Unk's a stubborn old rat and he hasn't really a grain of sense, in spite
of all the money he made. All you've got to do is to egg him on as if
you thought it might be a little uncertain and then sort o' dare to make
a big bet with him. I'll get busy and tell him that this radio business
is the biggest kind of an expert job and that you fellows are blamed
doubtful about it. Then, when you get your set working and let Unk
listen in, he'll pay up and we'll divide the money. See? Easy as pie. Or
we might work it another way: I'll make the bet with him and you fellows
let on to fall down. Or we might--"
"Well, I've listened to your schemes," said Bill, "and I'm going to say
this about them: I think you are the dirtiest, meanest skunk I ever ran
across. You--"
"Say, now, what's the matter?"
"You're a guest under your uncle's roof; eating his grub, accepting his
hospitality, pretending to be his friend--"
"Aw, cut that out, now! You needn't let on you're so awful fine."
"And then deliberately trying to hatch a scheme to rob him! Of all the
rotten, contemptible--" Unable to voice his righteous indignation, Bill
clenched his fist and struck Thad square in the eye.
Thad had risen and was standing in front of Bill, trembling with rage as
impotent as though _he_ were little and lame, leaning, like Bill, on the
crutch a less valiant cripple would have used instead of his bare fist.
With a look of fiendish hatred, instead of returning blow for blow, Thad
made a sudden grab and tore Bill's crutch out of the hand which had felt
no impulse to use it in defense against his able-bodied antagonist.
"Now, you blow to Uncle and I'll break this crutch!"
Strange, isn't it, how we often are reminded of funny things even in the
midst of danger? Bill, a cripple and unable to move about with the
agility needed to fend off a cowardly attack by this miserable piker,
showed the stuff he was made of when he burst out laughing, for he was
reminded by this threat of that old yarn about a softy's threatening to
break the umbrella of his rival found in the vestibule of his girl's
house, then going out and praying for rain!
Thad, astonished at Bill's sudden mirth, held the crutch mid-air, and
demanded with a malignant leer:
"Huh! Laugh, will you?"
"Go ahead and break it, but it won't be a circumstance to what I'll do
to you. I can imagine your uncle--"
"So? Listen, you pusillanimous, knock-kneed shrimp? I'm going to mash
your jaw so you'll never wag it again! And right now, too, you--"
Possibly there was as much determination back of this as any evil
intent, but it also was doomed to failure. There was a quick step from
the deeper shadows and a figure loomed suddenly in front of Thad who,
with uplifted crutch, was still glaring at Bill. Only two words were
spoken, a "_You_, huh?" from the larger chap; then a quick tackle, a
short straining scuffle, and Thad was thrown so violently sidewise and
hurtled against the bench from which Bill had just risen, that it and
Thad went over on the ground together. The bench and the lad seemed to
lie there equally helpless. Gus picked up the crutch and handed it to
his chum.
"Let's go. He won't be able to get up till we've gone."
But as they passed out from among the shadows there followed them a
threat which seemed to be bursting with the hatred of a demon:
"Oh, I'll get even with you two little devils. I'll blow you to--"
The two boys looked at each other and only laughed.
"Notice his right eye when you see him again," chuckled Bill.