In the meanwhile the book became a sort of museum piece. Early in 1950 the quoted price in the second-hand book market was $50.00 for a single copy. Left with only two copies of the 1925 edition I myself endeavored to buy a copy for a friend in France, but no copies were forthcoming even at $50.00! Authors avowedly never read their own books--I am no exception to that rule. So the other day when I was reading proofs for the 1950 edition, after a lapse of 25 years, I began to ask myself a lot of questions. Why for instance was _Ralph_ written, in the first place? In 1911 I was a young publisher--not yet 27 years old. I had started publishing _Modern Electrics_ in 1908, three years before. It was the world's _first_ radio magazine. By 1911 it had attained a print order of around 100,000 copies and was for sale on all the principal newsstands in the U.S. and Canada, and sold by subscription all over the world. Yet, today I must confess I do not recall just _what_ prompted me to write _Ralph_. I do recall that I had no plan whatsoever for the whole of the story. I had no idea how it would end nor what the contents would be. The story began in the April, 1911, issue of _Modern Electrics_ and ended with the March, 1912, number. On the twelve covers of the magazine for that year there was a monthly illustration depicting some _Ralph_ exploit as divulged in the current installment. Thus for instance the first (April, 1911) cover showed Ralph at the _Telephot_--not the broadcast television of today but person-to-person television by phone, which has as yet to be realized. (See illustration.) Indeed the word _television_ was practically unknown in 1911. (The first technical article in print, using the term, was written by me: "Television and the Telephot," _Modern Electrics_, December, 1909). As the story developed from month to month there was the age-old scramble to beat the deadline--but somehow or other I always made it--usually under duress, finishing the installment at 3 or 4 A.M. on the last day. That the literary quality suffered painfully under such continuous _tours de force_ every month, there can be no question, but somehow the scientific and technical content came through unscathed most of the time. [Illustration] After 39 years I could point out a number of minor technical flaws in some of my early predictions, but on the whole I probably could not do much better today. To be sure, I would not think of a gyroscopic propelled space flyer now, but then in 1911 no one was thinking of rocket-propelled or atomic-powered space flyers. In 1911 too, scientists still thought of a universal ether permeating all space. Today we seem to get along very well without it.