TUNING IN
“It’s the _Shooting Star_!” cried Jimmy. “She’s been driven back and
fallen on the roof!”
Appalled by the possibility, Captain Springer and the boys rushed up
the stairs, followed by the others in the house.
But the sight of a crushed-in roof that they half-expected to see
was spared them. It was intact, but the glass of the skylight had
been shivered, and across the open sash lay a heavy bough of a tree
that had been torn by the gale from the parent oak near by and flung
to the roof.
“Bad enough, but it might easily have been worse!” exclaimed Bob.
“If that had been the airship, it would have been good-bye house.”
Mr. Layton and the boys boarded up the skylight temporarily, and,
immensely relieved, all went downstairs. The captain looked at his
watch with a start.
“I’ve stayed too long!” he exclaimed.
“You can’t stay too long,” declared Joe.
“Or come too often,” added Bob.
“That’s mighty good of you,” said Captain Springer, with a smile.
“And I’ll never forget that if it hadn’t been for you boys, I
shouldn’t be here at all.”
The boys were still enthusiastic about his visit when they met the
next morning.
“Isn’t the captain a dandy?” demanded Bob. “When he got to talking
last night, I could have listened to him until morning. I’d like
nothing better than to be with him on the iceberg patrol.”
“I wouldn’t mind taking a whirl at iceberg hunting myself, if I
wasn’t tied down to school all the time,” grumbled Herb. “Seems as
though I’d never be through school and be able to do what I want
to.”
“Maybe if you spent more time thinking about Latin and math, and
less about jokes, you’d get through sooner,” remarked Jimmy, taking
a huge bite out of a big red apple.
“Listen to Socrates talking!” exclaimed Herb, in disdain. “You
haven’t got even the beginnings of a sense of humor, but I don’t see
that you’re getting through high school any sooner than I am, on
that account.”
“Perhaps not,” agreed Jimmy, complacently. “But I’m not making
people miserable by springing ancient jokes on them all the time.”
“Ancient!” exclaimed Herb, in an injured tone. “That’s the last
thing in the world you can say about my jokes. Why, I think of most
of them myself, so how can they be ancient?”
“Well, they seem that way, at any rate, after we’ve heard them five
or six times,” retorted his rotund friend.
“Jimmy’s right there,” observed Joe. “Even hearing them once is hard
on anybody.”
“Just for that I won’t tell you the latest joke,” said Herb. “It was
a swell one, too.”
“Thank goodness for that!” exclaimed Joe, so fervently that Bob and
Jimmy laughed heartily. Herb, however, appeared to have temporarily
lost his vaunted sense of humor, for he seemed unable to see
anything humorous in the situation.
“Never mind, Herb,” consoled Bob, seeing that Herbert was slightly
“peeved.” “We’ll tune up the old radio set tomorrow night and listen
to some of the broadcasted jokes. I’ve heard lots of them that were
worse than yours.”
“Yes, and I’ve heard lots that were better, too,” retorted Joe.
“That’s just your opinion,” said Herb, loftily. “As you are no good
as a judge of humor, though, I won’t worry about what you think.”
“That’s the spirit,” laughed Bob. “Joe really enjoys your jokes,
anyway, Herb, only he won’t admit it. Why don’t you own up to the
truth, Joe, and make Herb happy?”
“Oh, sure, I like them—just about as much as Jimmy would like a
doughnut famine,” retorted Joe, grinning.
“There you are—back at me again,” said Jimmy, plaintively. “When in
doubt, soak Jimmy. He’s got no friends. I notice though, Joe, that
when I have a bag of doughnuts, you’re pretty keen about getting
your share.”
“Quit your squabbling, you fellows,” counseled Bob. “And, by the
way, don’t forget that we’re due at Doctor Dale’s house this
evening. He’s been making a new crystal set that he thinks is dandy
and he wants us to listen in on it.”
“A crystal set!” exclaimed Jimmy, in some surprise. “What’s he going
back to that for? The tube lies all over the crystal, to my way of
thinking.”
“Of course it does in many ways,” agreed Bob. “But the crystal is
coming back into favor again for some purposes, and the doctor says
it’s surprising what results he can get from it.”
Soon after supper they were at the doctor’s house, and as they were
all anxious to see the new set, Doctor Dale showed it to them almost
immediately after their arrival.
“You see, boys, this set uses the old reliable galena crystal for
detection,” he pointed out. “Not so very long ago people all turned
up their noses at the humble crystal detector, but now it is being
used more and more—with modifications, of course.”
“Yes, but that’s partly due to the fact that you can get such good
artificial crystals now, isn’t it?” asked Bob.
“That has a lot to do with it,” replied the doctor. “The natural
crystal was nowhere as good as the manufactured variety.”
“Why is that?” inquired Jimmy.
“Well, you see, galena is really a natural crystalline sulphide of
lead. In some mineral veins it is found in perfect cubes. As a rule,
though, it occurs in big chunks, and most of the natural crystals
are just little bits chipped off. The natural galena crystals, as
you boys know, are fine if you can strike a sensitive spot, but
sometimes such a spot is rather hard to find. Now, with the
artificial crystal almost any spot on it will give a fair result.”
“I read somewhere that that was due to so many of the impurities
having been eliminated from the artificial galena,” observed Bob.
“Yes, that’s it,” assented the doctor. “The easiest way to get a
good crystal is to melt the natural crystals, and then let them
solidify again. Galena melts at about one thousand degrees
Fahrenheit, and the melting process seems to get rid of most of the
impurities. Some time we can make the experiment, if we all feel
inclined that way.”
“That would suit me first rate, for one,” asserted Joe. “I’ve found
out that if you want to get a good article, the best thing to do is
to make it yourself, if you can.”
“Wouldn’t it be a bit hard for us to heat anything up to a thousand
degrees?” asked Herb.
“Not a bit of it!” exclaimed Doctor Dale. “Why, the coal fire in a
kitchen range will heat up to that temperature easily, or we could
reach it over a good gas flame. The main difficulty is, not to heat
the galena sufficiently, but to cool it off properly. If it cools
too fast, the galena in the crucible will be made up of very small
grains with only a few sensitive surfaces.”
“How could you tell when you had reached the proper heat?” asked
Jimmy. “I should think it would take a pretty good thermometer to
register that high.”
“It would take a better one than I have ever seen,” replied Doctor
Dale, with a smile. “As it happens, however, it would not be
necessary to depend on any heat-measuring device. The color of the
crucible would be an accurate enough guide for our purposes.”
“How is that?” put in Herb, deeply interested.
“When it showed a dull red,” was the answer, “you could safely
estimate a heat of about seven hundred degrees, and at one thousand
degrees it will be somewhere between a bright red and a deep orange
color. When it gets to this point it should be kept there for about
an hour, after which you can begin a very slow cooling process.”
“Wouldn’t that be hard to do?” asked Joe.
“The best way, if your crucible is in a coal fire, is simply to let
the fire go out; but if you are using a gas flame, you can turn it
down very gradually and get the desired result just the same,” was
the reply.
“Let’s try it tonight!” exclaimed Herb, with his usual
impulsiveness.
“I’m afraid we are not equipped for the experiment this evening,”
returned the doctor. “If you would really like to try it, however,
I’ll have the necessary apparatus here the next time you boys come
to see me.”
“That will be fine,” remarked Bob. “We’ll not only make an
interesting experiment, but if it turns out all right, we’ll have
some fine crystals on hand.”
“I know it’s pretty hard to buy good ones lately,” agreed Herb.
“Sometimes I have to fuss around a long time before I can find a
sensitive spot,” added Joe.
“It’s no fun, either, when you’re in a hurry to listen in on a good
concert,” put in Jimmy, plaintively.
“All right, then, we’ll consider that settled,” said the doctor.
“But we don’t want to spend all the evening talking, even if it is
interesting talk. Let’s see what we can pick up on my new set,” and
he switched on the batteries and started manipulating the knobs,
while the Radio Boys waited eagerly for the first sounds to issue
from the loud-speaker.