CHAPTER XIV.
THE TELEGRAPH COMPANY.
"What's that you have?" said Frank, coming in one night after supperand finding the Codfish handling a kind of an instrument composed ofbright polished brass set on a wooden base. Gleason was examining itclosely.
"That, my inquisitive young sir, is nothing more nor less than atelegraph instrument."
"Where did you get it? Make it, buy it or pinch it?" inquired Frank.
"I bought it, kind sir. I was down at the Queen's station to-nightgetting off some of my important business by telegraph, and hisnibbs down there, the telegraph operator, recognizing in me a man ofexcellent perceptions, invited me in."
"And you got away with some of the tools. Does he know it?"
"Oh, yes, sir, he knows it. I sat there and watched him tapping away.He told me it was New York on the other end of the wire, after hehad called up. I didn't believe him, and he told me if I didn'tbelieve, I could prove it for myself by simply touching two littleposts that he pointed out."
"And you touched?"
"Yes, if you must know the details, I touched it, and incidentally Ijumped about six feet in the air. It gave me a shock, you see."
"And then you realized that it really was New York on the other endof the wire?" queried Frank, who knew something about telegraphybecause he had studied it in a series of articles in the Boys'Magazine.
"Sure, I realized at once that it was New York, for I've heard thatNew York is a shocking city. Now, then, will you be good?"
"Put him out! Put him out!" said David, looking up.
"Electrocute him, I should say," cried Jimmy. "He ought to be giventwo thousand volts in the neck for that."
"Well, if you will draw down these things on your heads, keep oninterrupting my story. I asked the gent if it took much brains tolearn it, and he had the nerve to tell me it didn't take much ofany, and added that he thought I could just about accomplish it. If Ihad been a fighter like Redhead here, I'd have been insulted, but asit was I kept a dignified silence."
"Well, when did you make away with the instrument?"
"All in good time, kind friends. He showed me how easy it was towiggle the little key, and I tried it myself. If I had stayed anotherhalf hour, I would have been an accomplished operator."
"And how about the instrument?"
"Well, finally, I got so much interested in the little clicker thathe said he would sell me something that I could learn on, and hebrought forth this attractive affair and agreed to sell it to me fortwenty-five dollars."
"Oh, oh, and you bit, did you?"
"I said he agreed to sell it, note my words carefully. I made him acounter offer of three dollars and a half for it, and he said 'It'syours.' And, generous soul that he was, he gave me an instructionbook which I also have, if I haven't lost it," and the Codfish beganto search hastily through his pockets.
"There it is," he said, holding it up--"How to Learn Telegraphy--AComplete Analysis of the Entire System of the Morse Alphabet--Withthe Complete Code for all Letters, Figures and Punctuation Marks.There's a bargain at three-fifty. Eh, what?"
"Cheap at half the money," said Frank. "Hand it over."
He turned the pages over thoughtfully. "Say, this gives me an idea.Why wouldn't it be a good scheme to have a little telegraph line ofour own?"
"Where to--New York? I insist it shall not be connected with NewYork. I had enough of New York to-night. It's too shocking."
"Quit your fooling. If you get off that New York joke again I'llpunch your head. No, I really mean it. We could have a lot of funwith a telegraph line. We might have an instrument here and one inJimmy's room. We might even connect up with Wee Willie Patterson whoseems to have deserted us this fall."
"I say," said Jimmy, "it would be a great stunt. We could use it asa kind of alarm clock. When I sleep over, the Codfish can rattle alittle on it and I'll be awake in a jiffy."
"Thank you," said the Codfish. "I vote against it, if I'm to be thealarming fellow."
"And," continued Frank, "we might run a wire down to Queen's stationand get the night operator to send to us for practice."
"Yes, I imagine he'd love to do it," quoth the Codfish. "He seems somuch like a generous fellow, particularly when you show him money."
"Well, let's show him money, if he won't do it without it."
David agreed with Frank that it would be a good scheme to havea telegraph line; and the long and the short of it was that thenext night a descent was made on Murphy, the night operator at thestation who, after much haggling about the price, agreed to run aprivate wire from the station to Queen's School and equip it withtwo sets--because only two sets were available. Murphy also agreedthat for this sum he would furnish enough "juice" from the stationbatteries to make a sending current on the wire, and moreover hewould "send" for fifteen minutes every night when the boys desired.
The boys went back to Queen's and scraped together enough moneybetween them to pay ten dollars down, and Murphy, as good as hisword, commenced stringing the wire the next day. As the line wasto be kept a secret, it took a somewhat crooked path, dodging thisway and that way to avoid conspicuous places. It cut across theriver from the station, was bracketed on a tree, then took half adozen leaps among the trees across the roof of an old house longunoccupied, and finally climbed the slope to Queen's School, wellhidden among the trees.
Perhaps the most difficult part of the work was getting the wireon Honeywell Hall itself so as not to attract the attention of thecaretakers, who would undoubtedly have made short work of it. Theheavier wire was ended on a bracket on a great elm that swayed overthe roof of Honeywell. From this bracket a very fine copper wire wasstretched to the room of Jimmy and Lewis, which was fortunately onthe rear of the Hall. From there it was an easy matter to bring itacross and down a rain spout to the sill of Frank's window. When thewhole job was completed, much of it under cover of darkness, so wellhad it been done that unless you had been looking for such a wire youmight have looked over a hundred times and seen nothing unusual.
When the circuit was complete, Murphy attached the instruments andreturned to the station. "I go on duty to-night at seven o'clock," hesaid, "and I'll cut the wire in and see how she works."
The boys were in high spirits about the successful completion of thejob, and waited with eagerness to hear the signals Murphy was to sendthem.
"Wouldn't it be a joke," said the Codfish, as the hour for theopening of the great telegraph line came and went, "if it didn'twork?"
"We'd be out ten dollars," remarked David. "But look at the fun we'vehad!"
"There speaks a true sporting proposition, gents," said the Codfish.
But the line was not to be a failure. Suddenly, while the boys werediscussing their probable bad bargain, the little brass-armed sounderjumped into life and began to dance like mad.
"How well he talks!" said the Codfish, who couldn't read a letter. "Ithink it's about the most intelligent language I ever listened to.Don't sit there, Frank, pretending you know all about it," for Frankhad his ear glued on the sounder and was trying hard to make out whatwas coming.
"IT'S CHOCTAW!" CRIED THE CODFISH. "WHO CAN READCHOCTAW?"--_Page 179._]
"No, I can't make it out, it's too fast for me; I can read a littleif I haven't forgotten. I wish he'd send slower."
By degrees the sounder stopped its mad dancing and began to workslowly.
"Listen," said Frank, and he seized a pencil, "it's something hewants us to hear. I'll write it down."
Frank began scratching as the sounder clicked on. And this is what hegot:
"_Do ntfo rgett hat youow eme fi vedol lars._"
"It's Choctaw!" cried the Codfish, who had been leaning over Frank'sshoulder as the message came in. "Who can read Choctaw? David, don'tspeak up too quick. And Frank thinks he's an operator! Shades of mygrandmother, what a message!"
Frank had been staring at the page. Finally he burst out laughing.
"Oh, it's a joke, is it? It looks funny enough to b
e a joke. Explainit, please."
"The only trouble is, that I didn't get the spaces right betweenthe words. See, when you space it right the Choctaw becomes thefollowing: '_Don't forget that you owe me five dollars_'."
"What an insulting thing to send over our own wire first crack out ofthe box!" said the Codfish. "Of course we owe him five dollars, andif he were a gentleman he wouldn't remind us of it, particularly whenwe haven't got it in our clothes."
Frank's unexpected display of the ability to read the telegraph bysound, was a great incentive to the others of our quintet of boys,and they worked with might and main. Pasted in each room was a largewhite card ornamented in the Codfish's best style with the Morsealphabet and figures spread boldly thereon, and this is what theystudied morning, noon and night, and sometimes in between:
A--dot dash. B--dash and three dots. C--two dots space dot. D--dash two dots. E--one dot. F--dot dash dot. G--two dashes dot. H--four dots. I--two dots. J--dash dot dash dot. K--dash dot dash. L--one long dash. M--two dashes. N--dash dot. O--dot space dot. P--five dots. Q--two dots dash dot. R--dot space two dots. S--three dots. T--one short dash. U--two dots dash. W--dot two dashes. X--dot dash two dots. Y--two dots space two dots. Z--three dots space dot.
1--dot dash dash dot. 2--two dots dash two dots. 3--three dots dash dot. 4--four dots dash. 5--three dashes. 6--six dots. 7--two dashes two dots. 8--dash four dots. 9--dash two dots dash. 0--one long dash (longer than letter L).
"And Murphy says that's all a fellow needs to know, to do almost anykind of telegraphing. Sounds easy, doesn't it?" said Frank, one day."And it is easy to remember the signals themselves, but when theycome flying over the wire it's a different story."
"How are you getting on with the telegraph?" inquired David, onenight of Lewis, who was listening to the measured ticking of theinstrument.
"Great," said Lewis, "I guess I'll be able to take a job on therailroad pretty soon."
"Get out," said Jimmy scornfully. "Lewis makes a great fuss about itbecause he can tell such little things as _e_ and _i_ and _h_ andthings like that. I can do better than that myself. I have a speakingacquaintance with the big, forbidding fellows like _q_ and _x_ andall the high dignitaries."
For a time the lessons suffered by the introduction of this new toy,but by and by it began to take its natural place in the day or night.They picked up the reading wonderfully quickly and, as the dayswent on, Murphy was able to take a faster gait. Perhaps they didn'tunderstand all of it, but it was a great joy to be able to pick outsmall words as the instrument rattled along. All of the boys wereable to "send" pretty well, which as every one knows is the easy partof telegraphing. It is the receiving that is so difficult.
Often Frank and Jimmy held labored conversations over the wire whenMurphy had cut out and left them to themselves, and it generallyhappened that they were obliged to stick their heads out of thewindow to confirm by voice what had been said and to fill in the gapswhich were not clear.
The Codfish frequently used the wire to play tricks. One night Jimmywas awakened by a desperate clatter on the instrument. The callof Jimmy's room was _JC_, and they were both hard letters for ourfriend, the Codfish. He was rattling away at this _JC_, _JC_, _JC_,as fast as he could go. Jimmy sprang up and answered. "_It's verycold down here_," clicked the instrument; "_come on down and putanother blanket on me_." Jimmy was furious. "_I'll come down_," hewired back, "_and put a club on you_."
"_Ha, ha, ha, ha!_" laughed the Codfish on the wire.
But they got a lot of fun out of it and some profit, for they werelearning something which they might some day be able to turn toaccount. Little did any of them realize that it would, at no verydistant date, play a prominent part in an important incident in theirschool life.
Frank Armstrong, Drop Kicker Page 14
