I sent the second operator to bed to wait his twelve-to-six watch, and settled myself into the chair with the earphones on my head. There was the usual amount of July static rolling in, and the usual lack of radio traffic to bother my ears. I heard the Duluth station ask some one what the weather was like near the Apostles. Two Canadians on their way to Port Arthur passed the time of day, and that was about all. It was around ten o’clock that there was a tap on the door. Expecting some curious passenger I answered without much enthusiasm. “Do you mind if I come in?” It was Captain Trinder. “Not at all, sir, please do,” and I scrambled to my feet. It was unusual, I thought, for a captain to be so polite. He sat down in the dilapidated chair that had once had arms and looked curiously about. I realized that he had never seen a radio before. The package freighters were not compelled to carry wireless equipment--the few dollars a month the operator got plus the rental of the apparatus was enough to prevent the company from furnishing their skippers with them. The old man did not seem comfortable. I guessed that the clothes he wore now were not those in which he commanded the package boats. He wasn’t quite at home. But he was a kind old man, I thought, and I could talk to him without any feeling of self-consciousness because I was in the presence of a superior officer. “Well, sir, it’s a bad night out, isn’t it?” “Yes,” he said slowly, steadying himself against the heave of the ship. “But it will quiet down before morning. Have you any weather reports?” The junior had hauled something out of the ether, and I gave it to him. It was the usual “moderate to strong southeast winds, overcast,” which, of course, was confirmed by the weather we were going through. There was nothing exciting or disturbing about it. I explained that if the static wasn’t too bad I would get further reports on the Upper Lakes from Arlington before I went off watch. “Static?” he asked. He was very much interested in the radio, and the thought occurred to me that he was leading up to something he wanted to know about it. When I let him listen to the intermittent crashes and rasps of summer static, he was greatly impressed, and wanted to know if we ever heard any one talk. “You mean the human voice?” I asked. “Yes,” he nodded. “I--I have heard that voices sometimes come in. Voices of dead people.” There it was. Out like a bolt from the blue! I froze to my chair, and could think of nothing to say. This was what he wanted to know. He looked very strange. The men had been right. He was queer. I tried to laugh it off with a remark that I didn’t see how dead people could talk, but more and more it seemed to him that the radio might be the place where old friends could get together. “Well, sir,” and I laughed out of nervousness, “if you have any one in particular you would like to talk to, say, Napoleon or Julius Cæsar, I’ll give them a buzz.”