When I got back to the wireless room there was quite a collection of people crowded around the little window, but whether for the purpose of sending messages or out of curiosity I didn’t know. I stood about as much chance of getting up to that window as a fellow has of getting on a subway express at Brooklyn Bridge during the rush hour. I went away in disgust and didn’t go back again until we had sailed down the river, passed through the Narrows and had dropped the pilot out at sea. Suddenly I heard the _ze--ze--zip--zip--zippy_ snap of the sparks of the transmitter as the operator began to send, and I rushed madly to the wireless room. As I ran down the passageway I read ‒··· ·‒· ‒ that is _B R T_, _B R T_, _B R T_, at intervals of every two or three minutes; _B R T_ was the call letter of some shore station that the operator was trying to get, but without my book, which gave the call letters of the different ship and shore stations, I couldn’t tell which one it was. You know, of course, that when a vessel wants to talk to a station either on ship or shore the first thing the operator does is to _listen-in_--to make sure that he will not interfere with messages that are being exchanged between other stations within his range. If the _ether_ isn’t too busy he then sends the call letter of the station he wants. On reaching the wireless room I found a bigger crowd congregated around the window than ever for the _zip--zippy_ crackle of the sparks as they broke down the air between the spark-gap _electrodes_ had attracted the curious even as honey attracts insects of the _Musca domestica_ family, i.e., houseflies, and I couldn’t get within six feet of it. There was a short lull while the operator looked over a message which a little man with red hair and a pepper and salt suit had written out. When the operator started to send again I read off the name of our ship, the state of the weather and the number of words he intended to send, all of which was in accordance with the regular routine prescribed by the rules and regulations of the company for governing communications by wireless between ships and shore stations. The message ran like this: For fear you may not know the Morse code which was used by all coastwise steamers in those early days, I will do it into English for you. [Illustration: The Morse Code patterns and the text of a message with this content: "VINALOS", "FINE", "FIFTEEN", "J D BROWN 12 BROADWAY NY", "FORGOT MONEY IN HASTE", "SEND TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS BY WIRELESS", "REST BY DRAFT", "RIALJO", "FRANK BROWN"] _S G_, which I afterwards looked up, was, I found, a station at Sea Gate which was on the coast. _Vinalos_ was the name of our ship. _Fine_ meant the state of the weather. _Fifteen_ indicated the number of words the message contained. I laughed at the man who forgot, but nobody else laughed because there was probably not one among them who knew the difference between a binding post and an electric wave.