“How can they, when he’s only a voice?”
“Only a voice? Who’s only a voice? They’ll find him.”
“I don’t believe it. Do you know,” Johnny smiled, “the other night he talked about you and about Tom Howe, too? What he said then was true, too; only he didn’t go very far. If I only could, I’d tell him; but I can’t. He’s only a voice.”
“Only a voice,” Drew Lane mused. “Only a voice, and with many a great message to deliver to the countless thousands who listen in every night. What an opportunity! And yet, only a voice? It can’t be done. I tell you, Johnny, they are devils, these crooks! They’d hunt you out and put you on the spot, kill you. Know what I mean?”
“I hope they don’t.” Johnny’s words were almost a prayer.
CHAPTER XXII
THE NAMELESS ONE
Next evening Johnny met some one who thrilled him to the very center of his being. And yet, when he thought of it quite soberly in the shack afterward, he could scarcely tell why.
He came, quite unexpectedly, upon “The Ferret.” It was in a little underground restaurant where the walls were of imitation stone and all the dishes of a curious Dutch pattern.
So much absorbed was “The Ferret” in something a youth about Johnny’s age was saying that he did not notice Johnny at once. When at last he did see him he sprang to his feet with an exclamation.
“What a lucky meeting! Let me introduce my—” He broke off abruptly, appeared quite confused, then ended rather lamely, “Well—er—a friend who is very much one of us. He has, you might say, a burning desire to be of some service to his city.”