Page:Jack Heaton, Wireless Operator (Collins, 1919).djvu/145

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Working with Marconi
121

post instead. Some one said “stupid” under his breath but still loud enough for me to hear it and I was happy. None of this wireless kid stuff here. I was getting away with murder.

Mr. Paget looked at his watch. “Poldhu is sending now. Too bad we haven’t a kite up, Mr. Marconi.”

“We must get it up. Mr. Kemp, will you be good enough to try again?” Mr. Marconi said.

Oh-ho, said I to myself. I am in on big doings. What Mr. Marconi is here for is not particularly to get signals from passing ships far out at sea, but to try and get Poldhu! It made my hair stand on end at the thought of such wonders. And if he gets it he will have spanned the Atlantic—over 2,000 miles—with his wireless waves. He will have done the biggest scientific thing since Cyrus Field joined the old and the new worlds with his cable! Whoopee! Yow! Yow!

From that moment on I was walking on air. The inventor, whatever he may have felt, was calm, cool and collected, dignified at all times but always in a good humor. The strain he was undergoing must have been tremendous, but he had trained himself well in the art of