The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service

"Have you decided upon the branch of the service you intend to enter?" he then asked.

Joe looked at Jerry, Jerry looked at Slim, and Slim cast a helpless glance back at Joe.

"I see you haven't," said Mr. Burton hastily, "and I'm glad of it. Now how about the Signal Corps?"

"What do men in the Signal Corps do?" asked Jerry.

"Do they fight?" demanded Slim.

"Yes," Mr. Burton replied, "they do some fighting on their own account, and often in tough places and against discouraging odds. But they do even more than that. Without their assistance no general would dare lay plans for a battle. The Signal Corps keeps the commanders posted, not only as to the whereabouts and disposition of his own troops, but also of those of the enemy. The Signal Corps is the telephone, the telegraph, the wireless, and often the aviation section as well, of the American army, and often of the American navy, too."

"Isn't that great?" exclaimed the breathless Slim, as Mr. Burton went over to the ticker to answer the code call for his station.

During the ten minutes that he was engaged in receiving and sending messages, the boys perfected plans for notifying their relatives of their intention. Had their attention not been so entirely taken by the subject under discussion they would have seen Herbert Wallace--another and very unpopular student at Brighton--pass by the office window, stop for a moment to stare at them, and then step away quickly in the direction of the door, near which they were standing.

"Well, what's the verdict?" asked Mr. Burton, having finished his duties.

"The Signal Corps is our choice," said Joe, speaking for all, "but how do we go about getting into it?"

"I think I can arrange that," Mr. Burton informed them. "You boys have been studying telegraphy under me for more than six months, and I'm willing to certify that each of you can now handle an instrument. In addition to that, you are able to take down messages on the typewriter as they come over the wire. Yes, sir," Mr. Burton finished, "I think your Uncle Sam will be mighty glad to get three such lads as you, and I know the recruiting agent to put the thing through."

So it was arranged that the three lads should return to the dormitory, write the letters which were to procure them the desired permission to enlist, and then inform the headmaster of their intentions.

Joe and Jerry, who had roomed together throughout their entire three years at Brighton, already were well on with their epistles of explanation when Slim, whose room was seven doors down the corridor, dragged himself in, looking more downcast than any boy in Brighton ever had seen him look before.

"No use," he informed his two friends, a choke in his voice. "They won't have me. I'm overweight."

"Oh, now, Slim, what are you worrying about that for? I don't believe any such thing," counseled Joe.

"It's true, though," affirmed Slim. "That's the worst part of it; I saw it in the book. I'm toting around about twenty pounds more than the government wants, and I'd have to stand on tiptoe in high-heel shoes to meet the requirement in height."

Poor Slim! He showed his disappointment in every look and every action.

"What kind of a book did you see it in?" asked Jerry, in a tone almost as sad as Slim's.

"In the manual," Slim groaned. "Herb Wallace showed it to me."

"That settles it," exclaimed Joe. "If Herb Wallace had a hand in it anywhere there's something wrong. I'll tell you what we'll do, fellows. We'll go and ask the headmaster."

Now the headmaster of Brighton had once been a boy himself. He could be stern, even cruelly severe, when occasion demanded, but he was kind of heart and broad of understanding.

Before him the three lads laid their case, as before the final tribunal.

"H'm," said he, when all the details had been related and the all-important information asked. "You say Herbert Wallace showed you this in a manual?"

Slim solemnly affirmed that that was the case.

The headmaster pushed a button on the side of his desk and in a few seconds his secretary, a big, bluff fellow, appeared.

"Bring Herbert Wallace here at once," said the headmaster. And in five more minutes, while the headmaster was shrewdly questioning the three lads as to the seriousness of their determination to enlist, the secretary returned, accompanied by young Wallace, flushed and shamefaced.

"Well, Wallace," said the principal of Brighton, "I hear you've been studying up on military subjects. Intending to get into the fight?"

Herbert Wallace hung his head and muttered an unintelligible reply.

"Now look here, Wallace," spoke the headmaster sternly, "where did you get the military manual from which you gave Goodwin the information that he could not pass the examination for the army?"

"I--I got it from the library, sir."

"Got it without permission, too, didn't you?" pursued the headmaster.

"Yes, sir," said Wallace, in confusion.

"And didn't know that it was out of date, and that the requirements were completely changed after the United States entered this war, eh?"

"No, sir," answered Wallace, on the verge of a breakdown.

"I'll decide upon your punishment later," announced the headmaster. "See me here at four o'clock. Meanwhile, Wallace, be careful where you get information, and be careful how you dispense it."

And Herbert Wallace, utterly humiliated, was glad to flee from the room.

"I don't think," said the headmaster, "that any of you will have difficulty passing the examinations. I dislike to see you go, but you speak the truth when you say that your country does need you, and I pay a great tribute of respect to you for the patriotism and courage with which you step forth to shoulder your obligations. Others already have gone from Brighton. Still others will go in the future. God bless all of you, and may you return safe and sound to reap the full benefits of the democracy for which you are going to fight."

The suspicion of tears dimmed the kindly eyes of the headmaster, and each boy choked up as he bade him good-by.

But, after all, this was no time for sadness. Young gladiators were going forth to the fray. And so we will skip over the farewells the following day, in which the parents of each lad, with many a heartache but never a word of discouragement, bade the boys Godspeed in the service of their country.

The three lads, together with fifteen others, formed a detachment of the recently enlisted who were to go to the Philadelphia Navy Yard for further assignment. Just before the train pulled out a students' parade that seemed to include every boy in Brighton marched to the station to see them off.