“It’s wireless—like the little outfit aboard the Marigold,” Amy suggested.
“But so much bigger,” Jessie chimed in eagerly. “If they admit visitors, let’s go.”
Mr. Norwood found out about that particular point for the girls and reported that if they went over to the station in the late afternoon the operator on duty would be glad to show them “the works” and give them all the information in his power.
The three friends went alone, for the collegians were off fishing that day on the Marigold. They left the little girls in Mrs. Norwood’s care and slipped away about four o’clock and walked to the station, which was some distance from the bungalow colony. They had to climb the stairs in the old shaft of the lighthouse to the wireless room. The room was half darkened and they heard the snapping of the spark, and even saw the faint blue flash of it when they came to the door.
The operator, with his head harness on, was busy at his set. Jessie, at least, had spent some time trying to learn the Morse code since talking the matter over with Darry on the yacht. But although the signals the operator received were in dots and dashes, she could not understand a single thing.
“I am afraid it will take us a long time to learn,” she said to Amy, sighing. “We shall have to buy a regular telegraph set and learn in that way.”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk about learning anything!” cried her chum. “Vacation is slipping right away from us.”
After a few moments the spark stopped snapping, the operator closed his switch and removed his harness. He wheeled around on the bench and welcomed them. He was really a very pleasant young man, and he explained many things about both the radio-telegraph and radio-telephone that the girls had not known before.
He was so friendly that Jessie ventured to ask him about the new super-regenerative circuit in which she was interested.
“Yes. I’m strong for that new thing,” said the wireless operator, enthusiastically. “In the first place, it was invented by the man who originated the ordinary regenerative circuit so much in use at present, and also of the super-heterodyne circuit. I understand this new circuit permits a current amplification up to a million times, and all with three tubes. You know, to reach such a high mark with your ordinary regenerative circuit, many more tubes would be necessary.”