It was along about three a. m. that we had a breathing spell after we both had short calls. We discussed a few clipped plans for the following evening and which of the ladies we would take out. When Ross talked to me, he wouldn't budge an inch. He would merely twist his neck in my direction and talk with that toe of his swinging lazily. We both kept our eye on the clock so that we wouldn't be late for a call--Hegstrom would get mighty fussy over complaints from the central wave-traffic office that operators at our station took calls late, even a few seconds. So about half a minute before his next call was due, Ross turned from me with a sigh--that is, turned his neck back--and stretched a lazy hand to the dial to get ready for the carrier wave. My next call wasn't due for another two minutes so I watched my friend without any particular purpose in mind. He reached a slow hand to his head and adjusted the phones on his ears a bit. Then both his hands dropped into position above the typewriter and I heard him say tonelessly, "Call-call-call--xxw2 call--" and then his voice clipped off like a voice in a broadcast clips off when a tube blows out. Watching him I saw first that toe of his stop swinging. Something important, I thought to myself. But then I began to sit up tense. In the first place, Ross hadn't touched his keys; in the second place he leaned forward in his chair and _dropped his leg to the floor_. Now that may sound silly that I mention his leg dropping to the floor, but to a person that knew Ross as well as I did that _is_ something. I had never seen it happen before. I sat up stiff as a board. He had just reached up his two hands to the phones and was pressing them closer to his ears like the message was faint. Now I knew something big was up and I jumped from my chair. "What's got into you, Norm?" I said, getting in front of him. But he didn't seem to hear me or know I was there. He only pressed the earphones tighter. When I looked at his face, I was shocked. Only once before had I ever seen that rapt expression--when he got the call from London two years before at the end of that three-month war telling how the whole city had been gassed and bombed, leaving not one soul alive. I looked at the clock. It was a minute past the time for his regular call. I shook his shoulder. "Listen here, Norm," I yelled. "You've got to get that call or--" "Listen to this, Bob," he cut in, handing me the phones. I put them about my ears. All I heard was a faint voice. I pressed the phones close as Ross had done. Then I distinguished it. In strangely muffled tones, the voice came in, full of sharp hissing sounds and hard consonants. I could understand not a word. I tore off the phones. "You fool!" I cried. "What's the idea of listening to some foreign station? Look!"--I pointed to the clock--"You're over a minute late on your regular call!"