"It's code—somebody sending code!" exclaimed Jack, and then the next instant, "it's some ship of the navy! Hurrah! The detector is working, for they use different wave lengths from the commercial workers, and, if it hadn't been for the Universal Detector, I'd never have been able to listen in at their little talk-fest."
He waited till the code message, a long one from Washington to the Idaho, of the North Atlantic fleet at Guantanamo, Cuba, was finished, and then he could not refrain from "butting in."
"Hello, navy," he chattered with the wireless key, "that was a nice little message you had. How's the weather up your way?"
"Who is this?" demanded the navy wireless in imperious tones.
"Oh, just a fellow who was listening," responded Jack.
"Butting in, you mean. But say, how did you ever get on to our sending? We were using eccentric wave-lengths to keep our talk a secret."
"I'll have to keep how I caught your talk a secret, too, for the present, old man."
"Great Scott! It isn't possible that you've solved the problem of a universal detector. Why, that's a thing the navy sharps have been working on for years."
"I can't say how I caught your message," shot back Jack's radio through space.
"You'll have to tell if the government gets after you," was the reply. "Uncle Sam isn't going to have a fellow running round loose with anything like that."