“Start sending as soon as you like, Joe,” said, Jimmy. “I’m all ready for you. I’ll bet I can fall asleep before you can send fifty words.”
“I wouldn’t take that bet, because I believe you can,” replied Joe. “I’d be betting against your 75 specialty, and there’s no percentage in that, you know.”
“Don’t forget me, though, will you?” said Bob, in a resigned tone. “I don’t want to hurry you, but any time you’re both through that interesting conversation I’m waiting to begin.”
“All right, then, here goes!” said Joe, and started sending as rapidly as he could with the practice key and buzzer.
Bob’s pencil fairly flew over the paper, and for five minutes there was no sound in the room save the strident buzz of the sender and the whisper of Bob’s pencil as it moved rapidly over the paper.
Then, “Time,” called Herb, and Bob threw down the pencil.
“Whew!” he exclaimed, reaching for a handkerchief. “That’s pretty hot work, if any one should ask you. Count ’em up, Herb, will you, and see how many there are? Seems to me there must be a million words there, more or less.”
“Quite a little less,” laughed Herb, after he had counted the words as requested. “But you’ve written ninety-one, which is mighty good.”
“That’s a little over sixteen a minute,” said Bob. “It’s not near as fast as I want to get, but it’s fast enough to get a license, anyway.”
“You bet it is!” exclaimed Herb. “And there are very few mistakes,” he added, as he 76 compared what Bob had written with the magazine text.