"That's nothing," said Betty. "Come along." She led her new friend into the dining room, and showed her how, by pressing a button, the rack could be heated for toasting bread, or heat supplied for the coffee pot. Then they went on into the kitchen, and she showed Alice the gas stove, where a flame sprang into life at the turning of a handle; and the washing-machine, where the pressing of another button set the clothes to churning up and down in the suds; and the electric iron, heated by the pressing of still another button.
Betty Showed Her the Victrola
"Why, nobody needs to do any work at all," said Alice admiringly, while Betty began to feel that after all she had a great many remarkable things in her house, which she had never thought much about because they had always been there. As they walked back into the hall, they heard a click-clicking sound.
"What's that?" said Alice.
"Oh, it's just my big brother's wireless apparatus catching a message. If he were here he could tell us what it says."
"What's a wireless?"
"Why, you don't know anything much, do you?" Betty explained as well as she could about the wireless telegraph.
"Goodness! That's like real magic. You must feel as if you were living in a fairy story."