“C. Q.” or, In the Wireless House
every night at such great expense—little things—that affect only a few people?” she asked, almost anxiously.
“Of course. It ’s just like a newspaper of six hundred to one thousand words. They send out what is vital, and some of it is deuced urgent. You remember when Crippen was caught getting over to Canada? It was all wireless. Why, that murderer would have beaten it if it hadn ’t been for the Captain snooping around and playing Sherlock Holmes among the passengers until he found a fellow that matched up to the description that had jumped through the air and overtaken him. Oh, it ’s quite exciting up here sometimes. Imagine me getting an SOS! You 're talking to some rosy ass on another liner about how their butter is holding out, or if they ’ve seen an iceberg, and suddenly—bing—out of nowhere you ’ll catch a little SOS. You listen, and sure enough it is! You drop the ass and the iceberg, and tune in quick, and you find it ’s a yacht that ’s punctured herself on a reef, God knows how far off! And then the air gets full of ships simply yelling. You can hear ’em all, from the Bay of Biscay to the Azores, from39
