“All the same, I wish he hadn’t caught up to us when he did,” grumbled Joe. “I was just going to mix it with Buck Looker when he came along.”
“Buck has lots of luck,” commented Jimmy. “Tell me all about it.”
They told him all the details of the meeting, and became so engrossed in it that they almost ran into Dr. Dale, who was just coming up from the railroad station.
He greeted them with great cordiality, which met with quite as hearty a response on their part, for the minister was a prime favorite with them and they always felt at their ease with him. There was nothing prim or professional about him, and his influence among the young people was unbounded.
He chatted with them for a few minutes until they reached Bob’s gate.
“Won’t you come up on the porch for a few minutes, Doctor?” asked Bob. “There are some things we’d like to ask you about radio.”
“Certainly I will,” replied the doctor, with a smile. “There’s not much that I’d rather talk about. In fact, I was just about to tell you of an interesting experience that I had this very afternoon.”
He went with the boys up the steps and dropped into the chair that Bob drew up for him.
“Tell us about that first, Doctor,” urged Bob. “Our questions can come afterward.”
“I just had the luck to get on a train coming home that had a car attached to it where they were trying out a new radio system,” replied the minister. “I heard about it from the conductor, whom I know very well, and he arranged it so that I could go into the car where they were making the experiments. They had a radio set in there with a horn, and the set was connected with an aerial on the roof of the car. They sent out signals to various stations while the train was going along at the rate of forty miles an hour, and got replies that we could hear as plainly as though one of the people in the car were talking to the others. The whole thing was a complete success, and one of the officials of the road who happened to be in the party told me that the express trains on the road were going to be equipped with it.