Radio Boys Cronies/Chapter XIX

Bill and Gus worked long hours and diligently. All that the power plant construction had earned for Bill, the boy had turned in to help his mother. But Mr. Grier, busy at house building and doing better than at most other times, was able to add something to _his_ boy's earnings, so that Gus could capitalize the undertaking, which he was eager to do.

The layout of the radio receiver outfits to be built alike were put at first on paper, full size; plan, side and end elevations and tracings were made of the same transferred to heavy manila paper. These were to be placed on the varnished panels, so that holes could be bored through paper and panel, thus insuring perfect spacing and arrangement. Sketches, also, were made of all details.

The audion tubes, storage batteries and telephone receivers had been purchased in the city. Almost all the other parts were made by the boys out of carefully selected materials. The amplifiers consisted of iron core transformers comprising several stages of radio frequency. The variometers were wound of 22-gauge wire. Loose couplers were used instead of the ordinary tuning coil. The switch arms, pivoting shafts and attachments for same, the contact points and binding posts were home-made. A potentiometer puzzled them most, both the making and the application, but they mastered this rather intricate mechanism, as they did the other parts.

In this labor, with everything at hand and a definite object in view, no boys ever were happier, nor more profitably employed, considering the influence upon their characters and future accomplishments. How true it is that they who possess worthy hobbies, especially those governed by the desire for construction and the inventive tendency, are getting altogether the most out of life and are giving the best of themselves!

The work progressed steadily--not too hastily, but most satisfactorily. Leaving at supper time, Bill's eyes would sparkle as he talked over their efforts for that day, and quiet Gus would listen with nods and make remarks of appreciation now and then.

"The way we've made that panel, Gus, with those end cleats doweled on and the shellacking of both sides--it'll never warp. I'm proud of that and it was mostly your idea."

"No, yours. I would have grooved the wood and used a tongue, but the dowels are firmer."

"A tongue would have been all right."

"But, dear boy, the dowels were easier to put in."

"Oh, well, it's done now. To-morrow we'll begin the mounting and wiring. Then for the aërial!"

But that very to-morrow brought with it the hardest blow the boys had yet had to face. Full of high spirits, they walked the half mile out to the Hooper place and found the garage a mass of blackened ruins. It had caught fire, quite mysteriously, toward morning, and the gardener and chauffeur, roused by the crackling flames, had worked like beavers but with only time to push out the two automobiles; they could save nothing else.

The Hoopers had just risen from breakfast when the boys arrived; at once Grace came out, and her expressions of regret were such as to imply that the family had lost nothing, the boys being the only sufferers. And it _was_ a bit staggering--all their work and machinery and tools and plans utterly ruined--the lathe and drill a heap of twisted iron. It was with a rueful face that Bill surveyed the catastrophe.

"Never mind, Billy," said Grace, detecting evidence of moisture in his eyes; but she went over to smiling Gus and gazed at him in wonder. "Don't you care?" she asked.

"You bet I care; mostly on Bill's account, though. He had set his heart mighty strong on this. I'm sorry about your loss, too."

"Oh, never mind that! Dad is 'phoning now for carpenters and his builder. He'll be out in a minute."

Out he did come, with a shout of greeting; he, too, had sensed that the real regrets would be with them.

"It'll be all right, me lads!" he shouted. "Herring'll be here on the next train, with a bunch o' men, an' I'll git your dad, Gus, too. Must have this building up just like it was in ten days. An' now count up just what you lads have lost; the hull sum total, b'jinks! I'm goin' to be the insurance comp'ny in this deal."

"The insurance company!" Bill exclaimed and Gus stared.

"Sure. Goin' to make up your loss an' then some. I'm a heap int'rested in this Eddy's son business, ain't I? Think I ain't wantin' to see that there contraption that hears a hunderd miles off? Get busy an' give me the expense. We've got to git a-goin'."

"But, Mr. Hooper, our loss isn't yours and you have got enough to--"

"Don't talk; figger! I'm runnin' this loss business. Don't want to make me mad; eh? Git at it an' hurry up!" He turned and walked away. Grace followed in a moment, but over her shoulder remarked to the wondering boys:

"Do as Dad says if you want to keep our friendship. Dad isn't any sort of a piker,--you know that."

The insistency was too direct; "the queen's wish was a command." The boys would have to comply and they could get square with their good friends in the end. So at it they went, Bill with pad and pencil, Gus calling out the items as his eye or his memory gleaned them from the hard-looking objects in the burned mass as he raked it over. Presently Grace came out again.

"Dad wants the list and the amount," she said. "He's got to go to the city with Mr. Herring."

Bill handed over his pad and she was gone, to return as quickly in a few minutes.

"Here is an order on the bank; you can draw the cash as you need it. You can start working in the stable loft; then bring your stuff over. There will be a watchman on the grounds from to-night, so don't worry about any more fires. I must go help get Dad off."

Once more she retreated; again she stopped to say something, as an afterthought, over her shoulder:

"And, boys, won't you let Skeets and me help you some? Skeets will be here again next week and I love to tinker and contrive and make all sorts of things; it'll be fun to see the radio receiver grow."

"Sure, you can," said Gus; and Bill nodded, adding: "We have only a limited time now, and any help will count a lot."

Going down to the bank, Bill again outlined the work in detail, suggesting the purchases of even better machinery and tools, of only the best grades of materials. There must be another trip to the city, the most strenuous part of the work.

"We'll get it through on time, I guess," said Bill.

"I'm not thinking so much of that as about how that fire started," said Gus.

"It couldn't have been any of our chemicals, could it?"

"Chem--? My eye! Don't you know, old chap? I'll bet Mr. Hooper and Grace have the correct suspicion."

"More crooked business? You don't mean--"

"Sure, I do! Thad, of course. And, Bill, we're going to get him, sooner or later. Mr. Hooper won't want to stand this sort of thing forever. I've got a hunch that we're not through with that game yet."