Page:C Q, or, In the Wireless House (Train, 1912).djvu/54

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“C. Q.” or, In the Wireless House

“And you ’ve been talking to all of them! It ’s too wonderful. How do you do it?”

Micky laughed lazily.

“It ’s no trick at all!” He threw over his rheostat and wound up his magnetic detector. The converter gave a great roaring whir, and he threw it off again; but he put the receivers to his ears and listened.

“All at lunch,” he commented after a minute. “Anyhow, nobody ’s working. You see, there ’s very little doing except at night. The air ’s much more quiet then as a rule, and there ’s no one to bother you. Of course, I only get relay messages out here, because we ’re out of commercial range of The Ushant and Poldhu, and nobody sends anything from Tangier—at least, I never had a message for a passenger from there.”

“But I don't understand,” she hesitated. “What happened when the machine made that great noise?”

"It was generating the current for my aerials,” he replied. “You ’ve noticed those wires hanging down, something like a hammock, from the mast, of course? Well,”—he threw on his converter,—“now she ’s

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