“It should be quite a pleasant trip for you, Falconer,” remarked the little, middle-aged, well-dressed man who was one of his superiors, as they sat together in a room in the Engineering Section at Marconi House on a bright October afternoon. “The plant went out from the works at Chelmsford three months ago, and we have been advised that it has all arrived in Hungary, or I suppose they call it Czecho-Slovakia now, and it is lying at the station at Arad.”
“I will do my best,” replied Geoffrey, greatly delighted at the instructions he had just been given, namely, to proceed to Hungary to erect two complete one-and-a-half kilowatt stations for continuous-wave telegraphy and telephony. “I have never been in Hungary, and it will, no doubt, be interesting.”
“It will. I’d dearly like to go with you,” laughed Mr. Millard, one of the best-known of wireless engineers. “The sets have been purchased by the Baron de Pelzel, on behalf of the new Government of Czecho-Slovakia, and one of the conditions of the contract provides that we should send out an engineer to erect the stations.”
“Will anyone go with me?” asked Geoffrey.
“No. There is, I think, no need. I myself looked through the instruments before they were packed. All is in order. You can employ local labour. There are surely some quite good electricians in Hungary. The first station is to be erected somewhere near Arad—wherever that may be—and the other in some other part of Hungary. We thought you would like an opportunity to go abroad.”
Geoffrey thanked the chief of his department, and then, after receiving a number of other instructions, he went down in the lift and out into the busy Strand.
Half an hour later he was at Mrs. Beverley’s.
“Hulloa, Geoff!” cried Sylvia as he entered the room. “Where have you sprung from? I thought of you down at Chelmsford with your uncomfortable old telephones on your ears, turning little handles very slowly, and listening! Oh, Geoff, you look so funny sometimes when you listen! You look as if your whole life depended upon it,” added the girl chaffingly.
“And so it does, dear. At least my bread-and-cheese depends upon it.”
“Why, the other day Colonel Maybury, of the Air Ministry, told me that your improved amplifier will probably bring you a comfortable fortune in royalties!”