Presently a loud jumble of sound, resembling nothing quite so much as a flock of crows fighting over a carcass, began coming forth from the loud-speaker.
Joe Marion’s brow wrinkled. At the end of three seconds he exploded:
“Tune her up, why don’t you!”
Curlie grinned, but did not move.
“No use letting it go on like that,” expostulated Joe, making a move to take a hand in the business. “He might be sending something important.”
“He is,” said Curlie, pushing his companion back to his seat. “He’s saying something mighty important. That’s why I don’t change it. I told you I had something new. Can’t you wait to see it tried out?”
Sinking back into his place, Joe listened to the strange clack-clack in silence.
A few seconds later the sounds ceased. Quickly removing a small instrument and disconnecting the tube from the loud-speaker, Curlie tuned in on 350 and, a moment later, they were listening to a concert which was being broadcasted somewhere on the Pacific Coast.
“Do you mean to tell me that that thing is a phonograph?” said Jennings.
“No,” said Curlie, “I don’t. That music comes to us over five hundred miles of space, perhaps a thousand; Seattle, Vancouver, San Francisco, I don’t know which.”