“C. Q.” or, In the Wireless House
our subscribers. ‘SP—SP—SP’ he says (‘Press for transmission only’), and gives the number of words. It ’s usually about six hundred. Then he goes ahead and tells how the market is, and who ’s dead, and who won the prize fight—and when he's finished he goes back and says it all over again. Why, I sit here every night and it ’s just as if I was on Picadilly Circus except for the lights. Often there ’s just as much noise.”
“So everything that goes on in the world is known on the sea!” said the girl lightly.
“Everything of importance,” he answered.
“And you ’re always in touch—never any more terrible uncertainty”—she hesitated for the smallest fraction of a second—“about—anything!”
“None. Even if you are n’t in touch with a land station, you ’re always in communication with a whole bevy of ships, and they give you all the dope—the news. Why, sometimes, up here, it ’s like an afternoon tea except for the women, and”—he laughed—"sometimes I have them too.”
“But, of course, there are many things that happen which are not worth reporting, like that,38
