"I also disconnected the wires leading from the tube to the trigger." He beamed with the pride of the child, or the amateur, who has done something clever. "What do you think of it, Professor?" "You managed very well, indeed. With this knowledge, I should feel rather uncomfortable sitting on the porch if I did not know you had taken all the precautions you mentioned. Playing with this hobby must give you considerable satisfaction, Judge." "Yes, I get a great deal of joy out of it. But come, I am being selfish keeping you away from my other guests. They--" He did not finish the sentence. He was once more reminded of the terrible pall of threatening gloom hanging over him and his comrades. The men sat in the large living-room chatting for a while. But it was forced. None of them could pretend that he was completely at ease. Chapter VII Jimmy decided to put a detailed account of the latest developments of the story on the wire in Lentone. He therefore asked Matthews to take him down in the sea sled. He could make better time that way than driving his own car over the plowed and unplowed fields that lay between the camp and the road. But he did not telegraph his story. He found the small telegraph office besieged with a crowd of men and women, all clamoring for a wire. Jimmy grinned at the spectacle. It did not take the veteran newspaper man more than a glance to know it for what it was. Three hours had elapsed between the time he telephoned his flash and the moment when he stepped into the small telegraph office in Newport. In those three hours, all the big and some of the little papers of the country had frantically wired their nearest correspondents to get busy. From the North in Canada, from the South, East and West men and women began converging on the little town of Lentone, Vermont. A day later these local correspondents would be replaced by star reporters, special writers, feature writers, syndicate writers, novelists, and sob sisters. Jimmy knew that within twenty-four hours every big newspaper in the country and every important press service would be represented. Still grinning, he backed out of the telegraph office and hunted for the nearest public telephone. He found a repetition here of the condition he had met in the telegraph office. He had to walk six blocks before he came to a booth at which one or more persons were not awaiting their turn.