Just whom Mr. Salper had got the radio boys could not tell with certainty, but they had a shrewd suspicion that Mohun was the hapless individual.
The financier walked happily and springily about the office, chuckling to himself, and Jimmy declared afterward that if they had not been there he would have danced a jig.
At last, when he had given sufficient vent to his elation, Mr. Salper turned to Bob.
“I’m sure I can’t tell you how I thank you,” he declared, with a cordiality and heartiness that they had never yet seen in him. “This matter was one of the most important that has come to me in the whole course of my life. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were involved in it, and I’d surely have lost out if I hadn’t had your services in this extremity. And now I’m going to prove my gratitude. A check—”
“No, thank you, Mr. Salper,” interrupted Bob hastily. “We don’t want money for the service we’ve been to you. It’s been exciting and interesting work for us, and I, at least, have been more than paid in the experience I’ve got through sending.”
“Well then I’m going to get you the finest radio set that money can buy,” persisted Mr. Salper.
“Not even that, thank you,” returned Bob, smiling. “It’s awfully good of you, and we appreciate it, but we’ve learned more of radio by building our own sets than we possibly could have done in any other way. If you want to send a check to the Red Cross or some other society of the kind, it would suit us better than anything else.”
“You’re a stubborn young rascal,” said Mr. Salper, with a smile, “and I suppose I’ll have to let you have your way. But just bear in mind that you boys have a friend in me for life, and if I can ever be of service to any of you in business or anything else, let me know and I’ll be only too glad to do it.”
He bade them good-by and went off briskly toward his bungalow to tell his family of the news that had lifted such a heavy burden from his brain and heart.
The third day after the episode at the radio station the radio boys had gone further afield than usual and came upon a little shack that had evidently been used by workmen as a place for storing their tools. It was little more than a shed, and the boys, bestowing on it only a casual glance, had come nearly abreast of it when Bob, who was slightly in advance, heard a voice that he recognized as that of Buck Looker.