“So long as Bob’s the goat,” finished Jimmy.
They found Mr. Salper in the living room of the bungalow, savagely smoking a cigar. He scarcely looked at the boys when the girls let them in, and Bob was forced to speak his name before he gave them his attention.
“Well, what is it?” he said gruffly, his tone adding plainly: “What are you doing here anyway? I wish you’d get out.”
The tone made Bob mad, as it did the other boys, and when he spoke his own tone was not as pleasant as usual.
“We’ve decided to try to help you out, if we can, Mr. Salper,” he said, and the man looked at him with a mixture of surprise and incredulity.
“In what way?” he asked, in the same curt tone.
“We know something about sending and receiving messages by radio,” Bob went on, getting madder and madder. “And we thought maybe we might get a message through for you to a doctor and to your brokers, as well. Of course,” he added, modestly, “we haven’t had very much experience——”
Bob was too modest to say anything about how he had once sent messages to some ships at sea, (as related in detail in “The Radio Boys at Ocean Point,”) and how he had tried to send on other occasions.
“Experience be hanged!” cried Mr. Salper, so suddenly that the boys jumped. “You mean to tell me you can operate that radio contraption?”
“I think so,” said Bob, still modestly. “We haven’t done much along that end of it——”