Chapter 19

WALTER STEPS INTO THE BREACH

With Bob gone and radio lessons suspended the following morning seemed to both Dick and Walter an unwontedly quiet one. Moreover with a scorching sun high in the heaven, no breeze, and a dead low tide most of the activities to which the boys might have resorted were out of the question.

"Think of the sailing breeze we've seen blowing lots of mornings when we couldn't go out," grumbled Dick. "Isn't it infernal luck?"

"Why don't you take your car and go for a spin," Nancy suggested.

"Wheeler has it, silly. He's meeting Bob."

"I couldn't go motoring anyway," put in Walter. "I've got the dogs to chase round."

"You're not going out with them now," objected Dick.

"Not quite yet. I had them out before breakfast."

"What do you say we go over and fool round with the radio a while?" Dick yawned. "We've nothing better to do."

"All right. We can at least listen in for a spell. We've got that far."

"You boys better not go getting that wireless all out of order while Bob is away," cautioned Nancy. "He'd be ripping mad to get home and find it out of commission. Father wouldn't like it, either."

"Oh, we're not going to hurt the precious radio," sniffed Dick. "Don't you think we know anything?"

"Not much," fluted Nancy as she flounced away.

"At least she does not flatter us," grinned His Highness, quite unruffled by the girl's frankness.

"Oh, sisters never think a fellow knows anything, especially when they're older," Dick grumbled, as he unlocked the door of the low building and met the blast of close, stifling air that came out. "Scott! The place is like an oven, isn't it? Open a window, can't you?" he continued.

"Sure! There is some heat, I'll say. Just as well we dropped round if only to air the place out," Walter replied.

Together they switched on the current, regulated amplifier, detector, and tuner, and each with a head receiver tight to his ears sat down.

"Whee, but it is thick, to-day!" shouted Dick. "Run the tune up, kid, and see if we get anything."

"It is always bad a day like this," called Walter. "Besides, everybody seems to be butting in in the morning. Infernal, isn't it?"

"Let her go up to O'Connel's pitch. It can't do any harm."

"It isn't time for him to call, is it?"

"Pretty near."

"But what good would it do even if we did get his signal?"

"We should at least know he had something to say to us."

"I should consider that a negative satisfaction," Walter replied. "It would just be an aggravation. However, here she goes! As you say, it can harm nobody to get the right meter."

"There's that old commercial station up the Cape," announced Dick, presently. "That fellow is always on the job at this hour."

"Probably he has to be, poor soul," Walter returned. "We'll get rid of him in a minute. _What was that?_"

"It is some one on our line. That's the _Siren's_ call. It's O'Connel! Jove! What are you doing, man? What are you going to do?" asked Dick excitedly as he saw Walter's hand go out.

"Paper! Pencil! Hurry, can't you?" gasped Walter.

"Do you mean----"

"Let's both take it down in dots and dashes. Between us we may be able to make some sense out of it afterward. Quick!"

Clearly and evenly the message ticked itself off. Then there was silence.

"Get any of it?" Walter demanded, breathlessly tossing the receiver aside and shutting off the current.

"About two words. He went so fast----Did you get anything?"

"Oh, I've got something; but whether it will make any sense remains to be seen," said His Highness eagerly. "Where is the key! Toss it over."

"Here we go. Dot, dash,----"

"That's the letter A, you squarehead! I know what that first part is; it is always the same and we needn't fuss to translate it. _Aboard yacht Siren._ I don't care, either, where she is. What we want to get at is what she wants to say."

"But how can we tell where all that stuff leaves off?"

"I mean to tell," declared Walter with determination.

"But there is punctuation and other rubbish mixed in with the letters."

"No matter. Have a little patience, man!"

Nevertheless, in spite of all the patience and perseverance the boys could muster the magic message remained an enigma and at the end of an hour both were obliged to admit themselves beaten.

"It is worse than getting no message at all," lamented Walter.

"It certainly does not do us much good," assented Dick.

"Do you suppose your father knows anything about the Morse code?"

"Dad? Good heavens, no! Still we might take the thing up to the house and show it to him."

"I don't imagine it is right, do you?" speculated Walter. "No doubt we missed some of it or made mistakes. Still, what we contrived to write agrees fairly well, so some of it must be correct. Let's take it to your father. What do you say?"

"I feel like such a boob not to be able to make it out," Dick answered with evident reluctance at confessing himself floored.

"But we'll have to tell him O'Connel called. We've got to do that anyhow; so he may as well know the rest of it," Walter persisted.

"All right. We'll hunt him up. I warn you, though, that he will josh us most unmercifully. He'll pitch into me, too, and ask me why I haven't learned my Morse International before this. See if he doesn't."

"It is one thing to learn the code out of a book and quite another to be smart enough to read it or take it down," Walter maintained stoutly. "Nobody ought to expect you to be able to get a message the way Bob does. Why, he has been at the job years!"

"I know he has," Dick responded, slightly comforted. "Still, Dad will rag me, just the same. See if he doesn't!"

Locking the door and pausing to gain courage they set out over the lawn. Then suddenly, midway across the grass, His Highness came to a stop.

"Mr. Burns!" he cried, wheeling round. "Why didn't I think of him before?"

"What on earth are you talking about?" asked Dick, astounded by his companion's strange conduct.

"Mr. Burns!" repeated Walter. "Come along. Can't one of the chauffeurs take us down there?"

"For mercy's sake who is Mr. Burns, and why do you want to go and see him hot off the bat?"

"Mr. Burns, the telegraph operator," Walter contrived to stammer. "He must know Morse International. He has to know both the Morse American which telegraph operators use on land, and the other code, I'm pretty sure."

"But maybe what we've got down doesn't make sense," objected Dick. "You've a husky nerve to go toting that scrawl of ours to a professional."

"I don't care," grinned Walter. "I'm not afraid of Mr. Burns. He's driven me out of the station too many times when I was a kid. I will own, however, that I have more respect for him since I've learned what it means to run a telegraph."

"He may drive you out of the station this time," Dick ventured with a grimace.

"I'll bet he won't," was the sanguine response. "We've made it up since then. I've even helped old Burnsie shovel his snow now and then. He'll do a good turn for me, I'll bet."

"Come on then, if you are so sure of it," Dick answered, striding toward the garage.

"You're sure your father won't mind our taking the car?"

"He doesn't want it this morning. He is going to hang round and see if Bob calls him from New York. Besides, he said it was too hot to motor. Will Burns be at the station now?"

"He will if a train is due," announced Walter. "If the office is locked we can chase him to his house."

"All right! This is your party, remember," Dick said a trifle wickedly. It was evident he had no faith in the expedition. Notwithstanding his skepticisms, however, he ordered out the car and he and Walter sped away on their errand.

"It is time for a train," announced Walter in an undertone, as they neared the station. "See, there are people waiting. It is the noon train from Boston."

"Burns will be too busy then to bother his head over fake messages, I guess," sniffed Dick.

"Maybe not. At least we can try him," was His Highness's optimistic assertion. "Hi, Mr. Burns!" The lad was out of the car and hastening along in the wake of a much sunburned station agent in blue denim overalls.

"Wal, if it ain't Walter King! What you after, young one? I hear you've become the proprietor of Surfside--bought out the whole darn place for yourself."

"I did buy it but I'm going to sell it again. It's too small. I can't get room enough to stretch up there," came impishly from the lad on the platform.

"Show! You don't say!" drawled Mr. Burns with obvious relish of the joke. "Well, it ain't wise to be cramped. Maybe you wouldn't get your growth if you were."

He cast a glance toward the short, thick-set figure behind him.

"I say, Mr. Burns," burst out Walter, "are you terribly busy? I've got something I want to show you."

"What is it?" demanded the man, halting and holding suspended in his hand a cerulean blue egg case.

"I don't know what it is--that's just the trouble," answered Walter mysteriously.

"What you up to anyhow?" demanded Mr. Burns suspiciously.

Walter thrust forth the sheet of paper he had drawn from his pocket.

In his rough, grimy hand the telegraph operator took it.

"Where did you get this?" demanded he, glancing sharply over the top of his spectacles.

"Why, we have a wireless up at Surfside and this thing--or something like it that we didn't know enough to write down, came this morning."

"But I heard your brother Bob was up there."

"He had to go to New York yesterday."

"And left you to tend the tape, did he?" grinned the old man.

"Not much. He knows I'd be a duffer at the job," affirmed Walter.

"Mebbe you ain't as much of a duffer as you think. You managed to get this down on paper."

"We managed to together--Dick and I," explained Walter. "I don't suppose, though, we got it anywhere near straight. Does it make any sense at all?"

"Sure it makes sense!" announced Mr. Burns with a vim that quite took Walter's breath away. "There's queer spots in it here and there--a few letters that ain't needed, perhaps. Still, you can omit 'em since they serve no particular purpose."

"But what is the message? What does it say?" clamored Walter all impatience.

"Well, it ain't so thrillin' you need to go into a thousand pieces over it," commented the Cape Codder dryly. "Some friend of Mr. Crowninshield's 'pears to be comin' down here on the afternoon train bringin' with him his wife--either his wife or daughter."

"What!" Walter ejaculated weakly.

"That's what he says," continued Mr. Burns, calmly rereading the document he held. "Evidently some relation--or at least a person who feels he has the right to boss, for he says he wants to be met at the train."

"Did I get the name?"

"Yes, that's here. I may's well read you the whole thing with the exception of the extra touches you've added."

"I wish to goodness you would."

"'Tain't nothin' interestin', as I said before," insisted Mr. Burns, readjusting his spectacles. "'_Coming on afternoon train and bringing Lola. Meet me, O'Con_----' Where in thunder you goin?" The operator gazed in amazement as a pair of chubby legs vanished up the platform.

"That's all right, Mr. Burns! I don't want the paper back. You can keep it to remember me by. Thanks!" Then to Dick he shouted as he sprang into the car:

"We're off for home fast as we can make it, old man! Such news! Your father will be crazy! Whee! Hurrah!"

"If it is all the same to you," observed Dick with scorching sarcasm, "it would be pleasant to know the import of the message I took down."

"_You_ took down--well I like that! _You_ took down! Why, man, you could not even read it yourself! It is the message _I_ took down, my son."

"_We_ took down," corrected Dick.

They both laughed.

"O'Connel's coming this afternoon! What do you say to that?"

"Great Scott! But what----"

"He's bringing his wife or daughter," continued Walter with a wicked twinkle in his eye.

"What?" exclaimed his bewildered listener.

"Oh, this is rich! Rich!" continued His Highness with a paroxysm of laughter. "Wait until we tell your father! My soul and body! I'm sick laughing!"

"You might tell me the joke."

"I can't--I can't!" roared the boy. "It is too good!"

"And--and what about Lola?" stammered Dick.

"Why, you see Burns thought--my, but it's rich! Ha, ha! Burns understood that--oh, it's a scream!" and with that Dick was forced to be content.