“Never heard of you. Are you a tramp? Where from?”
“No. New Confederated liner—maiden voyage New York to Galveston. Roy Mercer, operator—just wanted to say howdy-do.”
“Congratulations and thanks,” came the reply. “First job?”
“Very first.”
“Good luck. How did the Giants make out to-day?”
“Haven’t heard,” said Roy.
“Good-bye, old top. My name’s Graham. Call me up again.” And the Iroquois passed on, while Roy got his messages ready for transmittal.
There were not many of these. The captain had filed a final report for the owners: a Wall Street broker ordered the sale of a thousand shares of United States Steel if the market rose. A salesman from Toledo wanted his firm to inform him when he could guarantee delivery of some machinery he had sold. And the usual number of pleasure-seekers were sending messages to their homes, announcing their departure from New York. Roy sent off the captain’s communication first, then quickly got rid of his commercial messages. For a long time he sat at his table, listening to the interesting messages that were pulsating through the nocturnal air. He felt sure that as long as he lived he could never grow tired of listening to these interesting voices of the night.
When ten o’clock approached, he tuned to the Arlington wave-length and waited to catch the time and weather signals. Later still, he listened in for the daily news-letter sent out each night by the Marconi Company, for publication next day in the marine newspapers that wireless telegraphy had made possible on shipboard. The Lycoming had not subscribed to this service and it was not permissible for Roy to give out the news. But there was nothing to prevent him from picking it out of the air for his own information, or from giving it to the captain. In fact, the Marconi Company rather expected this as a courtesy to captains on ships using their service. So Roy was particular to take every word of the eight-hundred-word news-letter that was flashed forth to the world late that night.
The German peace delegates had handed their reply, containing counter proposals, to the secretariat of the peace commission. The despatch gave the main points in the hundred-and-forty-six-page answer of the Germans. A troop call had been issued in Toronto in readiness for the pending strike of workers. A new rebellion was anticipated in Ireland. Captain Andre Tardieu had made a remarkable appeal to ten thousand soldiers of the American Expeditionary Force for a closer union between France and America. The baseball scores were given and Roy was pleased to learn that the Giants had beaten Brooklyn five to two and increased their lead. Hereafter he would be a Giant fan. He wondered if Graham, on the Iroquois, had caught the news and was almost tempted to call him up. There was a brief résumé of stock market conditions. But what interested Roy most was the announcement that the NC-4 would make its last lap next day from Lisbon to London.