I sat up stiff as a board. He had just reached up his two hands to the phones and was pressing them closer to his ears like the message was faint.
Now I knew something big was up and I jumped from my chair.
"What's got into you, Norm?" I said, getting in front of him.
But he didn't seem to hear me or know I was there. He only pressed the earphones tighter. When I looked at his face, I was shocked. Only once before had I ever seen that rapt expression—when he got the call from London two years before at the end of that three-month war telling how the whole city had been gassed and bombed, leaving not one soul alive.
I looked at the clock. It was a minute past the time for his regular call.
I shook his shoulder. "Listen here, Norm," I yelled. "You've got to get that call or—"
"Listen to this, Bob," he cut in, handing me the phones.
I put them about my ears. All I heard was a faint voice. I pressed the phones close as Ross had done. Then I distinguished it.
In strangely muffled tones, the voice came in, full of sharp hissing sounds and hard consonants. I could understand not a word.
I tore off the phones. "You fool!" I cried. "What's the idea of listening to some foreign station? Look!"—I pointed to the clock—"You're over a minute late on your regular call!"