The Boy Inventors Radio Telephone | Page 9

cast away without an
apparent hope of rescue on a yacht belonging to a German scientist, the
crew of which had mutinied. The boys' capture by a strange tribe and
subsequent escape in their Flying Ship formed thrilling portions of this
story, while Dick Donovan's researches in natural history provided the
boys with a lot of fun.
The volume immediately preceding this showed the boys coming to the
rescue of a poor lad, a waif and orphan, who yet had a fortune in the
plans and specifications of a new type of craft invented by his dead
father who had lacked the capital to develop it. Enemies strove
desperately to secure the papers, and even went to the length of forging
a will for the purpose, but partly through the agency of an odd German
lad, Heiney Pumpernickel Dill, their schemes were frustrated and the
invention was developed and set upon a working basis. This book was
called the Boy Inventors' Hydroaëroplane, and dealt with some
astonishing adventures and perils all of which the boys encountered
with plucky spirits and resourceful minds.
For some weeks preceding the opening of the present book relating of
the Boy Inventors, Mr. Chadwick had been closeted in his own private
laboratory. The boys had seen him only at rare intervals, and then he
had appeared abstracted and preoccupied. This, the boys knew, was a
sure sign that he was at work on a new idea.
Sometimes the lights burned in his laboratory far into the night and in
the morning he would appear at breakfast pale and silent. The boys had
indulged in much speculation as to what the new invention could be,
but had arrived at no satisfactory conclusion when, two days after their
experience with the eccentric professor, Mr. Chadwick summoned

them to his private workshop. The boys, who had been at work on the
Wondership, the flying automobile with which they had met such
surprising adventures in Brazil, obeyed the summons with alacrity. It
was delivered to them by Jupe, the negro factotum of the place.
"Massa Chadwick send me on de bustelbolorium," explained Jupe, who
had a vocabulary that was all his own, "for yo' alls to come right away
by his laburnumtory."
"All right, Jupe, we'll be right over," said Jack, "just as soon as we've
got some of this grease off our hands."
The boys' workshop was equipped with a washbasin and they soon
made themselves presentable. Then they hurried to Mr. Chadwick's
workshop. They found him standing before a roughly-built table on
which were ranged some odd-looking bits of apparatus.
There was a gasoline motor in one corner, geared to a generator--or
what appeared to be one--from which feed wires led to a square metal
box on the table. Attached to this metal box was a sort of horn-shaped
mouthpiece something like the transmitter of a telephone. Hanging
from its side was what looked like an enlarged telephone receiver. Jack
regarded his father questioningly.
"You sent for us, dad?"
"Yes, Jack," was the reply. "I'm in a quandary. Have you any idea what
this apparatus is?"
Both boys shook their heads.
"Looks like some kind of a telephone," ventured Tom.
"It is a telephone," replied Mr. Chadwick.
"But--but--where are the wires?" asked Jack, glancing about him, "or
haven't you connected it up yet?"
"It's connected up as much as it will ever be," said Mr. Chadwick with

a smile. "Can't you guess what it is?"
"I've got it," cried Jack suddenly. "It's a wireless telephone."
"That's right," admitted his father, and, in response to a flood of
questions from the boys, he told them how he had been working day
and night to bring the device to perfection.
"Now," he said, as he concluded, "I want you boys to go down to that
shed that was put up last week at the northwest corner of the orchard."
"The one that was put up to store gasoline?" asked Tom.
"I said it was for that purpose in order to avoid questions till I had my
work completed," said Mr. Chadwick with a smile. "Here is the key to
it. Inside you will find an apparatus similar to this one. Start the
dynamo and then stand in front of the transmitter and place the receiver
to your ear. If you don't hear anything at once use the inductor to tune
your aërial earth circuit to the transmitted current from my end just
exactly as you would tune up a wireless telegraph instrument to catch
certain wave lengths from another instrument"
"Then the principle of the radio telephone is the same as that of the
wireless telephone?" asked Tom.
"I'll explain that to you later in as plain language as I can," said the
inventor, "but now I am anxious to see