“Very good. That is the arrangement, then.”
Half an hour later Henry joined the chief electrician in the wireless shack. The latter first questioned Henry concerning the equipment and the theory of wireless. He found that Henry had a good basic understanding of these matters. The brand-new instruments that Henry had not hitherto been acquainted with, he understood at once when their operation was explained to him. In general knowledge and understanding Henry was, the examiner found, fully the equal of even a first-class radio man. When it came to operating the key, Henry showed that he was very proficient. That the chief electrician already knew. Nevertheless he examined Henry thoroughly. He made him flash out all the letters of the alphabet. Then he gave him a message to send, and told Henry to get it off at his best speed. Henry called the imaginary party to whom he was signaling and then dashed off the message almost as fast as the chief electrician could have done it himself. His sending was flawless.
“Now let me see how you receive,” ordered the chief operator.
Both men sat with phones strapped to their heads. Henry began to search the air for messages, shifting from the very short wave-length at which he was operating up through the longer wave-lengths. Suddenly he ceased his shifting, and, seizing a pencil, wrote down this despatch: “Hurricane warning displayed 10 P. M. in Louisiana, Alabama, extreme northwest Florida coast. Storm now central about latitude twenty-seven north, longitude ninety-two west. It has reached hurricane intensity and is apparently moving northeastward toward the Louisiana coast which it will reach late tonight or tomorrow morning. Dangerously shifting gales indicated.”
When Henry had finished taking the message, he tore from the pad the sheet on which he had written and passed it to his companion. The latter also had been copying the message. “Absolutely correct,” he said. “I’ll give you one hundred on that.”
“And what will you give me on my entire examination, providing, of course, that the examination is ended?”
“It is. I can’t see that you lack anything as an operator. I’ll have to take off at least one point for your unfamiliarity with the new instruments. That would give you 99. I’d hate to give you such a grade, though. That would be too good to be true. I’ll mark you 97.”
“But suppose I deserved the 99. Would that be fair?”
“Young man,” said the chief electrician, “I reckon there’s mighty few of us can qualify as being so near perfect. You ought to be mighty well pleased to get 97. The passing mark is 75, and mighty few ever get much above 90.”
“Oh! I am well enough pleased,” Henry went on. “But that wasn’t the point. It’s a question of what I deserve.”