Page:C Q, or, In the Wireless House (Train, 1912).djvu/56

 “Two hundred and fifty miles!”

“That ’s about all you can do commercially by day, and it varies, at that, with the atmosphere. Every thunder-storm kicks up a bloomin’ row. The least thing makes a difference, you know—heat of the air, cool of the night, latitude, hills (if you ’re talking to a land station), any electrical disturbance (‘atmospherics,’ we call them)—storms in the ether you can’t see and only guess at. Three hundred mile by day is the very outside. But at night we get ‘freak’ working. I can send sometimes twelve hundred miles and receive two thousand miles. That ’s a bally long way. But, with the air nice and cool, I can take Poldhu every night—and it ’s well over a thousand.”

"It ’s the most wonderful thing I ’ve ever known!” she gasped.

“Yes—yes!” repeated the brother huskily, with an assumption of interest. “It is wonderful.” He coughed painfully a couple of times.

“Do you get the news from land that way?” she continued.

“Every night—regular as the clock,” answered Micky. “Why, I heard all about the