If the operator had been even a 14-carat gentleman he would have told her that when he works the key a low pressure current of electricity is broken up into dots and dashes representing letters and that this intermittent current flowing through the coil of the transmitter is changed into high frequency oscillations by the spark; the oscillations then surge through the aerial wire and their energy is emitted from the aerial in the form of electric waves. These electric waves are exactly the same as light waves, except that they are very much longer, and both are transmitted by, in and through the _ether_. Hence the wind, which is air in motion, has nothing at all to do with it. This would have been the real scientific explanation of how a message is sent and while it would, more than likely, have been as clear as mud to her young inquiring mind, still if she could not grasp the true explanation of how it works it would have been her misfortune and not the operator’s fault. See? But did he tell the lady straight? You could have told from his _physiog_ that he would not. Instead he went on at great length and framed up a story of how the wind had once blown a message he had sent far out of its course and then suddenly veering round it blew it back again and he caught his own message several minutes later when he was listening-in for the reply. This he claimed, with great seriousness was due to the low power of his instruments and a fouled aerial. “Are you having any trouble now on account of the wind?” continued the young woman deeply interested. “None at all, because you see I am using a four horsepower spark and I have just had my aerial sandpapered and oiled and the waves slip off without the slightest difficulty.” This little speech gave me another shock, but I had a third one coming and forthwith got it. “How are they coming in?” I asked, leaning against the window after the couple had gone. “What do you mean?” he questioned as he looked at me through half closed eyes in a way I didn’t fancy. “Why the messages?” “Through the window,” he returned shortly, and went back to his key. I stuck around the window and took a good look at the instruments which to my way of thinking weren’t much, in fact a lot of fellows in Montclair had outfits that put his way in the shade except that they were not as powerful. I couldn’t see why he was so _swelled_ on himself. He began calling again and after he had put through his message I repeated it out loud as though I was talking to myself, just to let him know that I knew. He took off his head-phones, came over to the window and smiled a thin-lipped smile which was anything but friendly. “So you’re another one of those wireless kids, eh?” “Yes, I have a pretty good wireless set. I live in Montclair and very often I hear Key West,” I told him with some pride.