Tony hastened to obey the summons.
He was soon aboard the boat, which was tied up at the wharf, and eagerly hastened to the deck house to find out what the fun was. Walter was sitting at the table with the receivers at his ears and his hand on the key. Observing that he was busy, Tony said nothing, but waited. The varying expression on the operator’s face indicated an interesting conversation with someone.
Tony watched and listened attentively and caught enough of his friend’s messages to understand that the latter was engaged in a lively repartee with another operator. Presently Walter found an opportunity to explain.
“I’ve got an operator on a big yacht, I think,” he said. “He was casting around for someone to talk to and picked me up. He started by calling me an undampt landlubber, and I called him a vacuum amplifier.”
“What’s a vacuum amplifier?” interrupted Tony, who knew little of the technique of wireless.
“It’s a radio monstrosity,” Walter replied. “When you make a study of the science of wireless, you’ll learn that the vacuum tube amplifier is an important instrument for increasing the volume of wave impulse at the receiving end. I left out the tube and called him a vacuum amplifier, meaning that he increased the volume of nothing. He came back weakly by calling me a vacuum detector, playing on the idea of a vacuum detective. That gave me just my opening for a good punch and I flashed back that I had detected him as the emptiest vacuum tube this side of a minus quantity.”
“Wow!” broke in Tony again. “Did that silence him?”
“Not yet,” answered Walter. “He called me an alternating current of sky juice and I shot back that he was an interrupted gooseberry—”
“Ha, ha, ha,” laughed Tony, “I’ll bet he quit then.”
“Yes, he did. But here he is again.”