“I ain’t sayin’ you boys can’t do wonders, an’ I’m fer you all the time, but I’m not goin’ t’ b’lieve you kin do what’s pretty nigh out o’ reason.  Listen to me, now, fer a minute:  If you fellers kin rig up a machine to fetch old man Eddy’s son’s talk right here about two hundred an’ fifty mile, I’ll hand out to each o’ you a good hundred dollars; yes, b’jinks.  I’ll make it a couple a hun—­”

“No, Mr. Hooper, we value your friendship altogether too much to take your money and that’s too much like a wager, anyway.”  Bill was most earnest.  “But you must take our word for it that it can be done.”

“Fetch old man Eddy’s son’s voice—!”

“Just that exactly—­similar things have been done a-plenty.  People are talking into the radio broadcasters and their voices are heard distinctly thousands of miles.  But, Mr. Hooper, you wouldn’t know Mr. Edison’s voice if you heard it, would you?”

“N—­no, can’t say as how I would—­but listen here.  I do know a feller what works with him—­they say he’s close to the ol’ man.  Bill Medders.  Knowed Bill when he was a little cack, knee-high to a grasshopper.  They say he wrote a book about Eddy’s son.  I’d know Bill Medder’s voice if I heard it in a b’iler factory.”

Bill Brown could hardly repress a smile.  “I guess you must mean William H. Meadowcroft.  His ‘Boys’ Life of Edison’ sure is a dandy book.  I liked it best of all.  Sometimes no one can see Mr. Edison for weeks at a time, when he’s buried in one of his ‘world-beaters.’  But I reckon we can let you hear Mr. Meadowcroft’s voice.  He wrote me a pippin of a letter once about the Chief.”

“All righty.  I’ll take Medders’s.  I know Bill, an’ you can’t fool me on that voice.”

“Mr. Hooper, I’ll tell you what,” said the all-practical Bill eagerly.  “This demonstration will be almost as interesting to you as it is to us, and you can help us out.  We can get what little power we need from any power plant.  But we want a shop most of all—­a loft or attic with room enough to work in.  We’re going to get all the tools we need—­”

“No.  I’ll get ’em fer you an’ you kin have all that there room over the garage.” (The old gentleman pronounced this word as though it rhymed with carriage.) “An’ anything else you’re a mind to have you kin have.  Some old junk up there, I reckon,” he went on.  “You kin throw it out, er make use of it.  An’ now, let’s see what you kin do!”

The boys were eager to acknowledge this liberal offer, and they expressed themselves in no measured terms.  They would do better than make one receiver; they would make two and one would be installed in Mr. Hooper’s library,—­but of this they said nothing at first.  Get busy they did, with a zeal and energy that overmatched even that given the power plant.  That afternoon they moved into the new shop and were delighted with its wide space and abundant light.  The next day they went to the city for tools and materials.  Two days later a lathe, a grinder and a boring machine, driven by a small electric motor wired from the Hooper generator were fully installed, together with a workbench, vises, a complete tool box and a drawing board, with its instruments.  No young laborers in the vineyard of electrical fruitage could ask for more.