  It was a hot June day when little more than a month later, two commodious limousines keeping close together rolled along the last few miles of the Boston Post Road, coming from the South, and entered New Haven. How strange and yet familiar seemed the streets of the famous college city to the lithe, sunburned young fellow at the wheel of the foremost car. This way and that darted his glance, as the car passed Poli’s and many another place enshrined in memories and traditions, and he was kept continually busy pointing out landmarks to the dark olive-tinted beauty beside him. It was still early in the day, for they had left New York at an early hour. But already the crush of automobiles coming and going in the streets was dense. And as they drew near a great green square resembling a public park, in the very heart of the business section, the traffic became so dense and slow-moving that the young fellow was compelled to give all his attention to his driving and to crawl, start, stop continually. It was on his companion that the first sight of the noble group of buildings, wide-stretching amid stately elms, on the other side of the green square, dawned. She clutched his arm, while her eyes opened wide. “Oh, Jack, how you must love it.” “Uh-huh,” grunted Jack, casting one swift look toward the dear familiar buildings of Old Eli. “But don’t grab me like that again, please, or we’ll be crawling up on top of this car ahead.” A few blocks farther, on a side street, Jack rolled into a garage already almost filled with cars and, while he was assisting Rafaela to alight, the second car drew in. From it stepped Mr. and Mrs. Temple and Mr. Hampton. From the first car Jack helped out Don Ferdinand and then Bob’s sister, Della. A slim, charming girl, with the springy step and quick yet graceful movements of a veteran tennis player, she well merited all the devotion which Frank Merrick showered on her. During Rafaela’s week in New York, shopping for her trousseau, a warm friendship had grown up between the two girls. Della’s chum, Marjorie, to whom big Bob had of late been paying marked attentions, was already in New Haven, and would meet them later. “Now to find the fellows,” said Jack, when all were assembled. “And there’s no getting around the streets in a car in this crowd, which is why I brought you here. Come on, fall in line.” Chattering gaily, the little party set out with Jack leading, Rafaela clinging to his arm. “It’s rather old-fashioned, Mother, for a girl to lean on a man’s arm like this,” whispered Della in an undertone. “But I like it. I think she’s charming, don’t you?” “These Southern girls,” replied Mrs. Temple in the same guarded tone, “I always did consider them more attractive than you mannish young women.” Whereat Della laughed lightly, nor felt any hurt. She knew none was intended. “Oh, there’s Tubby Devore,” she cried the next moment. And running forward, she gripped Jack’s free arm and pointed. “Jack, Jack, there’s Tubby Devore, and Johnny Malcolm, and Pinky Atwell, and—and—why, there are Frank and Bob. Oh, call to them, Jack.” Whereat Jack raised his voice, and in a moment the group thus hailed came plunging through the crowd, to surround the newcomers, pay their laughing respects to Della—an old acquaintance—and to slap Jack thunderously on the back and hail him as “Benedict.” To all of which Jack appeared brazenly indifferent, and presented each in turn to Rafaela, “who,” he said, “is soon going to have an awful job on her hands. Give her your pity lads. She’s going to look after me.” But if we were to follow our friends throughout the festivities and occasions of that and succeeding days, we would need another book or two. It was Commencement Week, and New Haven was going through its annual madness. Enough to say that indoors or out, at dance or tea or in the Bowl, Jack everywhere came in for attention as a distinguished young alumnus whose radio research already was bringing him and the institution fame, while Rafaela with her Spanish beauty offset by a ravishing accent and a spirit of mischief forever lurking beneath the surface was acclaimed by all Jack’s friends as a jolly good sort, indeed. As for big Bob, it was with genuine regret that those old alumni who followed Yale sports from season to season spoke of his graduation. He was leaving a record in practically all departments of athletics which everybody considered would remain unsurpassed for a long time to come. And Frank’s graduation equally was a matter for regret, among the undergraduate body especially, inasmuch as he had endeared himself to its members by his democratic spirit and charm of manner. At length, however, all good things must end, and it was so with Commencement Week. The day came when New Haven was only a memory, and all our friends were back in New York, though not in New York City, but on the adjoining Hampton and Temple estates near Southampton. Ahead of the young folks lay a long Summer with the prospects of gay companions coming and going, tennis, yachting, motor boating on the waters of Great South Bay and the broad Atlantic, golf and dancing, motoring and horseback riding. Della who was a born manager had taken charge of affairs, and had planned a round of gayeties leading up to the approaching marriage of Jack and Rafaela. The latter and Don Ferdinand were guests of the Temples. And, of course, in between everything else and, in fact, forming at first the major attraction for at least two members of the party, were the innumerable visits to New York paid by the two girls and Mrs. Temple in pursuit of that elusive thing known as “Rafaela’s trousseau.” Many times did the swift-moving events at Laredo and at Don Ferdinand’s Mexican estate come up for discussion, and every item of occurrences had to be rehearsed time and again, with the exception of how Rafaela had been captured and conveyed to Laredo. By tacit consent, that was never brought up for discussion because of the horrors surrounding it in Rafaela’s recollection. It was known that a lieutenant of Ramirez’s, who had been hiding in the hills near the estate, had swooped down the day after Jack and his father had concluded their brief visit, and, after smashing the radio station, had carried Rafaela off from under the eyes of the few peons left behind by Don Ferdinand and Pedro and from the despairing clutches of Donna Ana. More dead than alive, the poor girl had been swept up into the hills. But when she found that whatever fate was intended for her was to be deferred until she could be transported on horseback to Nueva Laredo and turned over to Ramirez, her courage and resourcefulness revived. She watched for an opportunity, and, when on arrival at Nueva Laredo, she found Ramon in almost as sad plight as herself, she instantly began working to bring the old fellow around to the point of helping her escape. The two, as we know, were in the act of carrying out their desperate attempt when Jack fortunately and opportunely arrived with his comrades and the aviators to rescue her. But, of the tortured hours that lay between the sudden attack of the bandits on her home and Jack’s arrival, she could never be persuaded to talk, and so, by common consent, the matter was never pressed. One day during this golden vacation period Jack went into New York, not returning until the next day. Then he arrived jubilant. He had come straight from hours spent with the chief engineers and officials of the great radio trust, and so fulsome had been the praise heaped on his young head on account of the successful outcome of his year’s experiments that modesty forbade him to repeat more than a tithe of it. Indeed, many another head—and many a good deal older than Jack’s—might have been turned; but his sat too squarely, he saw too sanely for conceit to gain a foothold. Enough to say that all Jack’s work had been fully approved, and that he would soon have the pleasure of seeing his improved radio equipment on the world market. He had solved the problem of providing super-selectivity with a radio receiver permitting the operator to select any station he wanted to hear, whether or not local stations were in operation—a receiver that brought volume from distant stations along with selectivity, that attained a more faithful reproduction of broadcasted voice and music than ever deemed possible before, and that, moreover, was eternally “non-radiating;” that is to say, that no matter how handled it would never interfere with a neighboring radio enthusiast’s enjoyment. And he had transformed the Super-Heterodyne, theretofore so complicated that engineering skill was required for its operation, until now it was improved in sensitiveness and selectivity and simplified so that anybody could operate it. “And what do you get for your work?” the practical Mr. Temple wanted to know. “I don’t know,” said Jack. “Maybe, millions. The radio trust financed my experiments, as you know, and you might think it would now offer me a lump sum and buy my work outright. But, although there were one or two men who wanted to do that, the balance were very decent about it. The upshot is that I have a contractual agreement, paying me a fixed royalty on all sales of my patented articles.” “You got them to do that?” said Mr. Temple, getting up and shaking Jack by the hand. “Well, I’ll say you’re a business man. How about it, Hampton?” And he turned toward Jack’s father. “Jack knows how I feel,” said Mr. Hampton, smiling. “But the big thing to him, and I guess to me, too, is not the fact that he probably will reap a fortune but rather that he has succeeded in advancing the cause of science.” “And now what are you planning to do?” persisted Mr. Temple, while the others—the whole party was present on the shaded slope of lawn beside the Temple tennis courts—listened for Jack’s answer. Jack pretended a secretiveness which he did not feel, and his make-believe was so pronounced that the others all began to smile. “Hist,” he said, gazing around, with hand, palm extended, shading his eyes. “Any enemies of the radio trust on hand? No, well then I can speak. But only in strictest secrecy, mind that, everybody. As soon as”—a twinkling glance at Rafaela—“as soon as I go under new management, I’m to be detailed to Washington.” “Washington? What for?” cried Bob. And, “Yes, what for?” echoed others. Mr. Hampton and Rafaela, who already had been admitted to the secret, alone remained silent. “There’s a man down there who also has been experimenting on radio,” Jack said, “but along different lines. He is trying to find out the laws controlling radio waves for the transmission of vision. Well, maybe, I didn’t put that just right. But this is what he’s after: He’s trying to evolve a radio device for the broadcasting of scenes. Thus, for instance, there would be a broadcasting equipment when the President takes his oath of office, when Babe Ruth plays ball, when the Belmont Stakes or the Kentucky Derby are run, when Bill Tilden and Suzanne Lenglen take on the world at tennis, when a new play is given its premiere; and the fellow sitting out in the mountains, far from everywhere, or over in our house or yours, Bob, with special equipment, why, he’d see it all, just as if he were present. And he’d hear, too. What do you think of that?” Various expressions of disbelief rose from the group, except that Bob and Frank sat silent, nodding their heads. “It’s bound to come,” said Frank, when the others had in a measure subsided. And Bob added with conviction: “It’ll come if Jack helps out this old professor.” And after a moment he added gloomily: “But Frank and I won’t be in on it. We’ll be down in the shipping room stencilling exports.” A merry laugh, which Bob somehow felt was a bit unfeeling, greeted this reference to the fact that at the end of the Summer vacation he and Frank were scheduled to enter the export house which their respective fathers had built up as partners, and which Mr. Temple had conducted alone since the death of his associate and lifelong friend, Frank’s father, years before. “Cheer up, Bob,” said Jack. “You expressed somewhat the same sentiments, if I remember aright, down in Laredo not so long ago. Nothing exciting was ever going to happen to you again, you said. Yet look at all the fun you had the very next minute.” And so, with this little prevision of the future, let us bid a temporary farewell to the Radio Boys, feeling fairly well assured that when we next encounter them Jack, and not Bob, will prove to have been the better prophet. The End. FRANK ARMSTRONG SERIESBy MATTHEW M. COLTON FRANK ARMSTRONG’S SECOND TERM Six Exceptional Stories of College Life, Describing Athletics from Start to Finish. For Boys 10 to 15 Years. PRICE, 50 CENTS EACH Cloth Bound
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