Radio Boys Loyalty; Or, Bill Brown Listens In

Radio Boys Loyalty; Or, Bill Brown Listens In

S. F. Aaron

5.0
Comment(s)
15
View
30
Chapters

Radio Boys Loyalty; Or, Bill Brown Listens In by S. F. Aaron

Chapter 1 STUDENTS

"They've got a splendid broadcasting station at the Tech, Bill."

"I know it; hence my general exuberance. And if we don't get at it once in a while, it'll be because we can't break in."

"What do you want to shout into it first off?"

"Why, I thought you knew, Gus. I've got it all fixed, date and time, for Professor Gray and Mr. Hooper to listen in. They're the chaps that are responsible for our getting into the Tech and they deserve our first message. I'll explain to President Field and I know he won't object."

"What's this you were telling me about hazing?" asked Gus, but as though really little interested.

"Terry Watkins was telling me; his cousin went there. Lost a new hat the third day, a pair of glasses the fourth and most of his clothes the fifth. His dad has a lot of dough, so he needn't have minded, but that won't be the case with us. I guess it's me for carrying a gun."

"If they're mean enough to pick on you, old scout, I'll carry one, too, but I think you'll be exempt. If I'm to be a victim, I reckon I'll have to grin and take--"

"No; you won't, either. We've come here to study-not to fool-and we haven't got money to spend on ruined duds just to gratify a lot of chumps. There are better things, too, than a gun; not so crude and not illegal."

"I can imagine," laughed Gus, and turned again to watch the fleeting landscape.

The chums journeyed in silence then, their minds busy conjecturing what their experiences and adventures were to be, after they became students of the Marshallton Technical School, which they were rapidly approaching and from which they held high hopes of gaining much knowledge. The institution, despite its modest name, was nothing less than a university of broad constructive teaching, with departments of engineering, electricity, chemistry, manual training and biology.

It was within the first two of these departments that William Brown and Augustus Grier were to concentrate their mental efforts. They had, as already related, earned this long-hoped-for opportunity to gain technical knowledge and training by showing what they could do along these lines. They had installed a small water-power plant and an electric lighting system for the Hooper estate, and had also won greater credit for constructing high-class radio receivers through which they had heard a no less personage than Thomas A. Edison speak. The boys had been saving their earnings to meet tech school expenses for at least a year. Their high school records, good common sense and scientific inclinations had been such as to receive the plaudits of their teacher, Professor Gray, and the members of their class.

Intense application and mental force characterized William Brown, who was called "Billy" by the high school girls-fine, bright-minded young women-and "Bill" by the boys. He was just Bill to nearly everyone. His friends referred to him as the school genius; and such he had proved to be on more than one occasion. Though compelled by a twisted leg to use a crutch and to abstain from strenuous physical participation in sports, he was a favorite. All saw his worth, and Professor Gray said of him that he possessed the mind of a philosopher and the expressiveness of a poet.

Cheerful, delighting in the strength of others, Bill's natural love of friendly contests and admiration for physical prowess impelled him to adopt as his best chum Gus Grier, who had much in common with him concerning mechanical matters. Gus was in many things almost the exact counterpart of the lame boy.

Gus was bright, shrewd, practical, reticent. He had the sort of mentality that made him a good follower, with enough native wit to discover his own limitations and to acknowledge Bill's superior characteristics. Both displayed that loyalty of friendship whose rare quality has made notable history. Sometimes their classmates called the boys David and Jonathan, or Damon and Pythias; sometimes, the head and body, the former referring to Bill and the latter, with no less admiration, to Gus because of his splendid athletic ability. The muscles of Gus were quite as remarkable in their way as Bill's brains; and both boys were modest, aiding one another in every time of need, doubling all their efforts with the term "we," which Bill used oftenest.

If Bill mastered a mental problem it was: "We did it by this method." If Gus entered upon a trial of strength or physical skill it was: "We'll do our best," and then: "Well, we won, but it was no cinch"-in deference to the efforts of a beaten opponent. All this was a matter of course. And now, regarding the present, either friend might have said, "We've passed our exams and we're going to Tech."

"Guilford! Guilford! All out for Marshallton!" shouted the brakeman, and in half a minute the boys were climbing into a taxi bound for the school; in half an hour they were facing the great buildings which stood for so much learning, and in half a day they had matriculated and were of the student body.

* * *

Continue Reading

Other books by S. F. Aaron

More

You'll also like

Jilted Bride's Revenge: The Valkyrie Awakens

Jilted Bride's Revenge: The Valkyrie Awakens

Gujian Qitan
5.0

I had been a wife for exactly six hours when I woke up to the sound of my husband’s heavy breathing. In the dim moonlight of our bridal suite, I watched Hardin, the man I had adored for years, intertwined with my sister Carissa on the chaise lounge. The betrayal didn't come with an apology. Hardin stood up, unashamed, and sneered at me. "You're awake? Get out, you frumpy mute." Carissa huddled under a throw, her fake tears already welling up as she played the victim. They didn't just want me gone; they wanted me erased to protect their reputations. When I refused to move, my world collapsed. My father didn't offer a shoulder to cry on; he threatened to have me committed to a mental asylum to save his business merger. "You're a disgrace," he bellowed, while the guards stood ready to drag me away. They had spent my life treating me like a stuttering, submissive pawn, and now they were done with me. I felt a blinding pain in my skull, a fracture that should have broken me. But instead of tears, something dormant and lethal flickered to life. The terrified girl who walked down the aisle earlier that day simply ceased to exist. In her place, a clinical system—the Valkyrie Protocol—booted up. My racing heart plummeted to a steady sixty beats per minute. I didn't scream. I stood up, my spine straightening for the first time in twenty years, and looked at Hardin with the detachment of a surgeon looking at a tumor. "Correction," I said, my voice stripped of its stutter. "You're in my light." By dawn, I had drained my father's accounts, vanished into a storm, and found a bleeding Crown Prince in a hidden safehouse. They thought they had broken a mute girl. They didn't realize they had just activated their own destruction.

One Night With My Billionaire Boss

One Night With My Billionaire Boss

Nathaniel Stone
5.0

I woke up on silk sheets that smelled of expensive cedar and cold sandalwood, a world away from my cramped apartment in Brooklyn. Beside me lay Ezra Gardner—my boss, the billionaire CEO of Gardner Holdings, and the man who could end my career with a snap of his fingers. He didn’t offer an apology for the night before; instead, he looked at me with terrifying clarity and proposed a cold, calculated business arrangement. "Marriage. It stabilizes the board and solves the PR crisis before it begins." He dressed me in archival Chanel and sent me home in his Maybach, but my life was already falling apart. My boyfriend, Irving, claimed he had passed out early, yet his location data placed him at my best friend’s apartment until three in the morning. When I tried to run, I realized Ezra was already ten steps ahead, tracking my movements and uncovering the secret I’d spent twenty years hiding: my connection to the powerful Senator Grimes. I was trapped between a CEO who treated me like a line item on a quarterly report and a boyfriend who had been using me while sleeping with my closest friend. I felt like a pawn in a game I didn't understand, wondering why a man like Ezra would walk up forty flights of stairs on a broken leg just to make sure I was safe. "Showtime, Mrs. Gardner." Standing on the red carpet in a gown that cost more than my life, I watched my cheating ex-boyfriend’s face turn pale as Ezra claimed me in front of the world. I wasn't just an assistant anymore; I was a weapon, and it was time to burn their world down.

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book