The latter part of the evening was given over to the radio, and the two sat listening in with the receivers on their ears.
O.U.J. was furnishing a varied program that evening. Pee-wee liked O.U.J. for the performers were a happy, bantering set, seeming to make the distant listener one of their own merry party. Moreover, O.U.J. was a night owl pursuing its wanton course of song and laughter after other stations had said good night and gone to bed. Evidently Plarry Blythe who sang songs and jollied the silver-tongued announcer had no home; at least he never went to it.
Emerson had never listened to a radio and he found it novel and entertaining. The ear pieces did double duty for they not only transmitted the voices of the night to Emerson but they effectually shut off Pee-wee’s voice as well. He talked but Emerson did not hear him.
It must have been nearly midnight and time for all respectable broadcasting stations to be home and in bed. Certainly it was time for Pee-wee to be in bed. But O.U.J. kept it up, and as the hour grew later they sang the latest songs. Lateness was their middle name. At last the Jamboree Jazz Band struck up. This outlandish and earsplitting group, compared with which the noises of a boiler factory were like a gentle zephyr, usually heralded the conclusion of the program. Pee-wee liked the Jamboree Jazz Band. Emerson, educated to good music, listened with rueful amusement.
Suddenly, in the very midst of the Jumping Jiminy One Step, the Jamboree Jazz Band ceased to play. For a few moments a holy calm seemed to have fallen upon the still night. Then came a series of weird squeaks and plaintive wails as if the spirits of the air were uniting in an uncanny chorus. One of these spirits seemed to have gone completely out of its head, shrieking uncontrollably.
Schooled to such a contingency, Pee-wee’s hand sought the little knob by which the unseen performers might be lured back to their duties.
But the weird voices only screamed the more discordantly. Then they ceased altogether. With both hands Pee-wee tried desperately to find the music but his frantic efforts were of no avail. The Jamboree Jazz Band was as silent as the grave. The Jumping Jiminy One Step had stepped away altogether.
“What’s the matter?” Emerson asked.
“Wait a minute,” Pee-wee said, frantically preoccupied with the mechanism.
But the Jumping Jiminy One Step had evidently jumped too far and he could not overtake it.