Page:Jack Heaton, Wireless Operator (Collins, 1919).djvu/265

 “I’ve gone through war, or what war is; I’ve licked a couple of would-be Kaisers myself and I’m going after a few more of them before I have done with life. I am, forsooth, a bit battle scarred but my skin is as thick as that of a rhinoceros. Any little thing that you might say about me I’d be delighted to jot it down.”

“Let’s see,” reflected Jack, “when we left off yesterday I had just been discharged from the hospital and was back with my folks in Montclair. When I was able to get around I wanted to see Broadway and came over one morning with dad. I was feeling bully as I was Strolling down the trail when suddenly I spied a man I once knew although I hadn’t seen him in years, no, not since I was a kid operator learning wireless.

“He was a tall, spare man like yourself, whose legs, as honest Abe once said, were long enough to reach to the ground. He might have been anywhere up to a hundred and five, by which I mean his age and not his weight; at any rate he had surely seen fifty summers and heaven only knows how many hard falls.

“He was slightly stoop-shouldered, which I suspect was due to his sticking to his desk too