“I always wanted to get a link between the cable and the ordinary Morse recorder, and I know it can be done. Then—who knows—I might in time go Lee De Forest one better, and have my amplifier knock his old-fashioned electrolytic out of business, for good.”
Then he fell to talking about wireless and transmitters and conductors, and suddenly broke into a quiet chuckle of laughter.
“I don’t think I ever told you about the fun we had down in that Broadway conduit. It was after the fire in the Subway and the Postal-Union terminal rooms. A part of the conduit roof had been cleared away by the firemen. Well, while we were working down there a big Irish watering-cart driver thought he’d have some fun with us, and every time he passed up and down with his cart he’d give us a shower. It got monotonous, after the fourth time or so, and the boys began to cuss. I saw that his wagon was strung with metal from one end to the other. I also knew that water was a good enough conductor. So I just exposed a live wire of interesting voltage and waited for the water-wagon. The driver came along as bland and innocent-looking as a baby. Then he veered over and doused us, the same as ever. Then the water and the wire got together. That Irishman gave one jump—he went five feet up in the air, and yelled—oh, how he yelled!—and ran like mad up Broadway, with a policeman after him, thinking he’d suddenly gone mad, trying to soothe him and quiet him down!”
And Durkin chuckled again, at the memory of it all. The sparrows twittered cheerily about the sunlit window-sill. The woman did not know what line of thought he was following, but she saw him look down at his bandaged arm and then turn suddenly and say:
“What a scarred and battered-up pair we’d be, if we had to keep at this sort of business all our lives!”
Then he lay back among the pillows, and closed his eyes.
“I say, Frank,” he spoke up unexpectedly, “where are you taking care of that—er—of that money?”
Her hands fell into her lap, and she looked at him steadily. Even before she spoke she could see the apprehension that leaped into his colorless face.
“No, no; we mustn’t talk more about that today!” she tried to temporize.
“You don’t mean,” he cried, rising on his elbow, “that anything has happened to it?”