The scientist and his boy friend never tired of talking of these things, for the young man was one of the many amateurs who had mastered the art, so that many a night as he sat at his receiver he caught the messages of steamships far out on the broad Atlantic, and heard the Navy Yard station transmitting orders to Uncle Sam's ships at sea. One day shortly after the _Titanic_ disaster the boy said to his friend: "I saw by the paper to-day that they are talking of passing a law to prevent the amateur wireless operators from working. I don't think they ought to do that. I'm sure most amateurs never interfere with any signals, as was said they did in connection with the messages to and from ships that went to the rescue of the _Titanic_." "So long as the amateurs do not have powerful sending apparatus," answered the scientist, "I don't think they will make any serious trouble, for it makes no confusion to have them 'listening in' on the passing radiographs. Of course with a powerful sender a mischievous person could work irreparable damage by sending fake messages of one kind or another. In fact there have been several instances of messages that were thought to be fakes, but I am sure no boy with the intelligence to rig up a wireless outfit, would be so lacking in understanding of his responsibilities as to try to confuse traffic. "But it would be a shame to stop the amateurs altogether," he continued, "for, no matter what the companies may say, the wireless telegraph is still in an experimental stage, and we must look to the bright boys who are studying it now, for its greatest development. The marvellous strides in improving the apparatus, and solving the mysteries of electro-magnetic currents, that have been made in the last dozen years, should be eclipsed in the next decade, if young men with some practical experience and a desire to get at the real scientific basis of the art, work at it." "What are some of the main improvements of the last few years?" asked the boy. For answer, the scientist and the boy made a journey down to the steamship docks, and visited the wireless cabins of several of the big transatlantic liners. They also went to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where there is a wireless school, that turns out Navy operators after a thorough course in all the various branches of the art. While on vacations to the seashore, the youth had visited some of the big high-power stations that send and receive messages to and from the ships at sea.