S. F. Aaron

“ From what Doctor Field said, Bill and Gus knew better. Hazing would be broken up on pain of expulsion, as it should be in all schools where the attendance is for business purposes, the getting of a technical education as a means of livelihood. The boys felt that perhaps in a college art course, where education becomes much play on the part of well-to-do lads, class fracases, bowl fights, initiations and the like may not be amiss, but they did not intend to let open brutality rob them of their chance to study. ”

“ Gus wished Bill to talk for him—and Tony too—not that he needed moral support, but it was pleasanter to have good friends along than to be entirely surrounded by opponents. However, he felt quite equal to the physical task, and as ready to stand his ground morally.
“See here, you sophs,” he said. “I’ll box and gladly, but not in the way Siebold wants to.”
“Aw, what do you care how the other fellow feels? It’s a bout just the same; isn’t it?”
“But Mr. Gay doesn’t want us to show any hard feelings,” Gus urged, “and he’s decent to us. ”

“ The whole lot of you couldn’t haze anybody that puts up a fight, if you played anyway fair and gave a little notice. We’ll give you a dare, Siebold, you and all your deputies, though I suppose you’ll send them and hang back yourself. We’ll be ready to take all the hazing you fellows can give to-morrow afternoon at about three o’clock; only there isn’t one of you who will have the nerve to show up. Oh, ‘no weapons?’ That was only a cigar case I pulled on you to-day. It wouldn’t shoot, but, by cracky, it worked!” And Bill laughed, with Gus and a few others who admired the boy’s nerve. ”

“ Davidson still eyed the cripple. “How would you do it?” he asked.
Bill shook his head and said, “It is that old trick of Edison’s and it’s dead easy. I guess a good many of our fellows know about it. You simply punch a hole in the bulb, fill it with water, pour it back and measure the water.”
“Yes; that’s right. It is really the only sure way,” said the man, his manner showing disappointment.
“Oh, no; it isn’t, begging your pardon. Oh, no, not the only way,” said Bill. ”

“ A hundred yards ahead the woods ceased, and Gus knew that beyond were the ever-shifting sand dunes crowned with their short-lived scrub oaks or pines and tufts of beach grass which bordered a wild and lonely shore for many miles. Twelve miles to the south was a somewhat popular seaside resort. ”

“ It is really too bad, with all the useless short syllables in our language going to waste, that the fellows who got up the terms for radio work couldn’t have used words like ‘grid,’ for instance. They could have called a variocoupler a ‘gol,’ a potentiometer a ‘dit,’ an induction coil a ‘lim,’ (l-i-m) and a variable condenser would look just as pretty if it were written out as a ‘sos’—but no! They forgot the good example set by the grid, the volt and the ohm and they went and used jawbreakers. ”

“ The heat only makes light and that light travels through space. It reaches the atmosphere of our earth and is converted into heat again. Perhaps light of the sun and stars and the reflected light of the planets do not shine through space as light, but as radio waves that either by our atmosphere, or by our electrical conditions here are converted into light again,—but this is hardly open to proof even. ”

“ They filed into the gym and got Mr. Gay into their conference.
“Now, then, Brown, what have you got under your skin?” said Siebold testily.
“You heard me in the library,” said Bill.
“Balderdash! There isn’t a fellow in the school who can pitch like Maxwell.”
“Oh, yes, there is, Siebold,” said Mr. Gay. “There’s no one who can play first base like Maxwell and your first baseman says he has a glass arm and is done. We have a pitcher who can pitch.” ”

“ 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 assembly room, have a big concert, send out some 55 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? ”

“ They went back, Gus to throw himself on old Dan’s couch and sleep like a dead man and Bill to take up the receiver phones, nodding over the table, to be sure, but remaining generally awake. For two hours he kept catching odd bits of no importance through long intervals. Then suddenly he sat up and, reaching over, poked Gus with his crutch. After two or three hard pokes Gus opened his eyes.
“Say, somebody’s calling for help! I can’t get it right, I reckon they’ve taken Tony away and out to sea again. Can’t tell who it’s from; it’s all jumbled, anyway. ”

“ Bill laughed.
“Will you accept a challenge to play a school scrub team?”
“No, nor that. Waste of time——”
“That’s nothing but silly stubbornness,” said Sadler, with rising wrath. “Wouldn’t it be just like practice? You’re a fatheaded——”
“Oh, now, see here, Siebold,” interposed the instructor. “You can’t refuse that. It will only 168 bring out the best players and strengthen the team.”
“Well, then, if Mr. Gay says so,” Siebold agreed, “we’ll play you and we can shut out any bunch you can get together.” ”

“ The boys learned that the intelligent young foreigner was in the graduating class 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. ”

“ It is not probable that Luigi told of the precise outcome of his clash with Bill and Gus, though he may have said enough to influence sophomore sentiment against Bill’s standing in the school. At any rate, the feeling grew in strength and spread until it became a subject of comment among freshmen and seniors who were inclined to sympathize with the brainy and keen-witted lame boy. At least he had many friends, both high and low, and most of the teachers admired him openly. ”

“ It was with extreme satisfaction that Bill sat on a log at one side of a path in the woods and watched little Kerry, who proved to be no mean hand at stopping all kinds of balls, nearly knocked off his feet by the machine-gun-like pitches of “that other fellow from Freeport,” as Gus was sometimes called.
One early afternoon the gym instructor also sat by Bill and watched the performance. Mr. Gay had promised secrecy, but not to refrain from comment.
“I’ll say he has not only got command of his ball and three good styles, but he also knows some tricks that ought to worry any man at the bat. ”

“ The regulars went to bat, laughing, Siebold straddling the plate.
Gus stood in the box, smiling. He nodded to little Kerry behind the bat and Kerry inclined his 171 head to the left. Sadler and Dixon were watching closely. Could the new pitcher on whom Brown appeared to stake so much really do anything? If he could send them over the way he boxed, thought Sadler, “good night”! Brown was all the time springing something worth while. That was just why he and Dixon had been willing to make a final kick at Siebold’s arbitrary rulings. ”

“ BILL BROWN LISTENS IN
7 CHAPTER I STUDENTS
“They’ve got a splendid broadcasting station at the Tech, Bill.”
“I know it; hence my general exuberance. And if we don’t get at it once in a while, it’ll be because we can’t break in.”
“What do you want to shout into it first off?”
“Why, I thought you knew, Gus. I’ve got it all fixed, date and time, for Professor Gray and Mr. Hooper to listen in. They’re the chaps that are responsible for our getting into the Tech and they deserve our first message. I’ll explain to President Field and I know he won’t object.” ”

“ The taxi driver joined in and helped the two boys in this, also.
“Did you say there’s a farmhouse just on ahead, Mr.——?” asked Gus.
“Merritt is my name,” answered the driver.
“And a roadside is your station. You’re fast in the snow and you cannot go and you’re mad at all creation,” said Bill.
“You’re right, son, about bein’ stuck, but I ain’t mad. Reckon I stand to lose on this trip, but——”
“No, my friend; you will not lose one cent,” exclaimed Tony. “More, you shall make well. We are not the unappreciatives, ever. ”

“ The good fellowship of two lads a little younger than he, both giving him friendship 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: 49
“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. ”

“ Score, six to nothing, and the Marshallton crowd, including the dignified president of Tech, the instructors to a man, the Farrells and a lot of other sympathizers yelled their throats sore, a bunch of fans going for Gus, hoisting 182 him on high and marching around with him, singing a school chantey:
And so on for half a dozen or so silly verses of the kind, Gus, meanwhile, suffering both physically and mentally, for being thus tossed about is by no means comfortable, and his modesty was such as to make him want to run and hide. ”

“ Marshallton is a village with nothing more than two general stores sufficient to cater to the needs of the near neighborhood and the Tech students. Guilford, nine miles away, is the railroad town and, now and then, for extra supplies the Tech boys may spend a dull half hour each way on the trolley to visit the quiet place which holds no other attraction than the stores.
Bill, Gus and Tony, eager to get some radio supplies that might as well have been ordered from the city, obtained leave to run over to Guilford and back. ”

“ The stunt did more than earn the boys a large share of fame. It made them so deservedly popular, even with most of the upper classmen, that they soon counted a good many friends and a considerable number of patrons for radio construction. It is a rather odd fact that methods 37 already mastered by those of their own age appeal to boys more than the teachings of their elders. So, although the students were getting, or had got, the theory of radio activity and the practice of wireless fully stuffed into them, they turned often to Bill and Gus for help. ”

“ Senatore Marconi suggests, at your request, that the finest reward that could come to these young Americans who have shown such loyalty to your son, with such ingenuity and mechanical ability, is that they be encouraged to complete their technical education and then, with your son, to use their talents in a commercial way. ”

“ His dad has a lot of dough, so he needn’t have minded, but that won’t be the case with us. I guess it’s me for carrying a gun.”
“If they’re mean enough to pick on you, old scout, I’ll carry one, too, but I think you’ll be exempt. If I’m to be a victim, I reckon I’ll have to grin and take——”
“No; you won’t, either. We’ve come here to study—not to fool—and we haven’t got money to spend on ruined duds just to gratify a lot of chumps. There are better things, too, than a gun; not so crude and not illegal.”
“I can imagine,” laughed Gus, and turned again to watch the fleeting landscape. ”

“ He turned to Dixon:
“When is the next ball game?” he asked.
“We play Springdale next Saturday, but they’re easy. The last game with Guilford is Saturday week.”
“It’s too bad that we get licked so unmercifully when there’s no need for it,” Bill remarked.
“No need for it? No, there’s no need for it, but——” 164
“I suppose we have needed it to put some sense into us, but no longer. It would be pretty easy to clean that bunch if we went at it right.”
“How easy?” asked Dixon.
“Why, you know without asking that. Putting a good man in the box and another behind the bat, of course.” ”