Page:Jack Heaton, Wireless Operator (Collins, 1919).djvu/264

 to say it, Mr. Collins,” remarked the bored young soldier.

“No, my boy,” I said firmly, “there are still some outstanding features about wireless I want to talk over with you, and besides I have never turned in a script to my publishers that had less than twelve chapters, that is, except a shorteut arithmetic and the shorter a book of that kind is the better.”

“I don’t know of any outstanding features as you call them; it seems to me I’ve told you everything that ever happened to me. What else can I say?” protested the young man.

“Give me your version of how we met, tell how you looked in that natty overseas uniform, how I looked, what is on your mind now and all that sort of thing. Then we’ll discuss the wireless transmission of power, wireless airships and submarines, talking to Mars and finally about the diamond fields of South America for I’m as interested in them as your friend Bill Adams,” I suggested.

Jack laughed.

“Why, if I painted a word picture of you I’m afraid you and I’d part company.”

“Hardly, my boy, hardly,” I reassured him.