Ross pointed to the wave-length dial. "See?" he said. "I've got it on the right wave. Eighteen point seven five meters." I stared a moment in bewilderment. Sure enough, it was where it should be. "Sure you want eighteen point seven five? Better check," I cried in a small panic, thinking of what Hegstrom would say. Ross gave me a withering glance which said without words, "Sure I want it? Did I ever lose my memory. "Well, I can't fuss around here," I said with a hasty glance at the clock. "My call is due in about ten seconds." Before I took my call I cried to my friend. "Probably something wrong with the dial control. You better try and find your call on some other number." Then I snapped my button. The carrier wave was already coming in. I had caught my call just in time. "Call-call-call--xxw2-zz5" I spluttered. Next minute I was busily typing the routine news from Persia. With everything going along smoothly, I turned my eyes in Ross's direction. A good operator can do anything with his eyes while taking routine news; he can even use half his brain to think about other things. I saw Ross playing with the dial and felt relieved that he was taking my suggestion that something had gone wrong with the works so that the dial was in error. Hegstrom would be awful sore when he got the complaint that Ross had failed to get his call. But then I would be witness that it wasn't his fault at all--that some foreign station had come in on that wave-length and spoiled the regular call. Only it was funny--it came to me then--that the regular call hadn't registered at all; I hadn't heard a background of English in the few seconds I listened to the foreigner. Maybe something had happened to the station in China! I turned my eyes back to my favorite spot--a dull paint spot on the panel--because I was getting some technical stuff and needed to concentrate. When I next looked at Ross about two minutes later, I heaved a mighty sigh of relief. He was picking at the keys, taking his call. Only one thing bothered me: his leg was still on the floor. "Oh, well," I thought to myself, "that upset him so much that he's a bit off center," and with this philosophy, I went on with my call in a much more peaceful frame of mind. I finished my call in about fifteen minutes and then I had a breathing spell of four. I looked at Ross. He still had that leg of his down on the floor and worse yet, his elbows were not resting on the arms of the chair; they were in the air and he was sitting up in his chair stiff as a knife. But he was peacefully typing out his call so after all everything was all right. I did notice one other thing then but not until later did it become significant: his face, as much of its expression as I could get from a side view, had a look of--I know now what it was although then I couldn't get it--amazement; stark, bewildered amazement.