“And if this daughter of mine will only strike a bargain on the dot and dash ‘teaser’ just to show that she isn’t entirely such stuff as dreams are made of,” with a laugh, “I might have radio installed for you—so that you can, now and again, tune in on a concert, while camping on the edge of nothing.”
“Boys—boys say that they have a respect for any ‘O. G.: Old Girl’, radio slang, who can master code—the ‘crutch’, as they call it—because she has to set her back to the wall to do it,” put in Pemrose roguishly. “And then—” her hand went up, in excitement, to her dimpling chin—“we wouldn’t have to depend altogether on my magic ring, radio ring, for any—any little gleanings from the air.”
“Magic ring—humph!” The fairy godfather’s eyebrows were lifted—just a little superciliously. “What can you pick up with a gewgaw like that—toy set like that? Firing pellets at the moon, eh?” he winked quizzically.
“You forget—you forget that my father is an inventor, sir, and that he has invented—discovered—a new crystal—‘radio soul’—which is an amplifier as well as a detector!” Pemrose’s back was up and to the wall now, her blue eyes flashing. “He—oh, he stumbled upon it while experimenting for my ring. We all know that crystals up to this time have been crude affairs,” vouchsafed the girlish radio fan, her chin in the air.
“A one-stage amplifier, I suppose—as well as a detector, sorting out sounds from the air!” Mr. Grosvenor gasped.
“Oh, by George! child, I did forget that your father is the archwizard who has bombarded the moon with something more ponderable than pellets. If any one can achieve the impossible—”
“He could have made me a ring with just an ordinary galena crystal, or silicon,” murmured Pemrose shyly, as the great man paused, “with which I could have picked up waves—sounds—not very far off. But—with this—my two hundred feet of aërial out to a tree, my spiked heel in the mud,” laughingly, “early in the morning, especially, I can—can glean snatches of everything within five or six miles; further—further, if it’s dot an’ dash—a powerful station sending!”
“Oh, by Jove! I can fancy you standing round, out-of-doors, after daybreak, with your shining halo—headpiece—on.” The tall man threw back his shoulders, with a chuckle. “Well! maybe, you’ll be the woman with power on her head who can ride Revelation.” He winked. “Revelation, son of Revel, Morgan bay, fifteen hands high, good-natured, well-trained—bridle-wise—but needing a rider with ‘pep’ to handle him!”
“I rode with father all last summer.” The “pep” leaked out of Pemrose’s whisper into her red cheeks now—the sunburst of luck was too suffusing.
“Oh! there will be eight or nine horses, I expect, out in the Long Pasture, on the sidehill. You girls can take turns in riding. Revel, gentle little mother-horse—a baby could ride her—I meant to have her brought down here this summer, for Una.”