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“Good-by and good luck, Guy,” said Walter Burton as his twin brother, with small traveling bag in one hand and amber glasses protecting his supersensitive eyes, was about to step aboard a south-bound train at the Ferncliffe station one clear, crisp winter-end day. “Send me a wireless message from Europe, and I’ll be listening in and catch it.”

“I’d like to, Walt,” was Guy’s smiling answer; “but I’m afraid that would be extravagant. I’ll tell you what I’ll do, though. When we get to New York, I’ll hunt up Vacuum Tube and send you a message from his station. You know he invited us to come and see him any time we were in New York.”

“All right,” agreed Walter. “When’ll you send it?”

“At 4 o’clock tomorrow if he’s home.”

“Good. I’ll watch for it. I’ll call V T and tell’m you’re coming. Good luck. Good-by.”

This hearty exchange of parting cheer between the sturdy, bright-eyed Walter and his equally sturdy, but “sick-eyed” brother was one incident in a general round of farewells that marked the departure of Guy Burton and his mother for England. Guy had been suffering several weeks with a severe infection of the eyes, resulting from the “flu,” and it was decided to put him under the care of a London specialist as the most hopeful move for saving his sight.

A local physician advised that this be done, and the boy’s father resolved to waste no time. Urgent business made it almost impossible for him to accompany his son, and a family council resulted in the selection of Mrs. Burton as traveling companion for Guy.

During a period of more than two weeks the latter had been unable to endure the optical strain of light, and most of this time he remained indoors with his eyes bandaged. Meanwhile Walter did all he could to cheer his “blind” brother. He read to him a good deal and in other ways endeavored to make his own eyes do the work of four. Every day he led Guy to their attic “den” where one of their wireless sets was installed, and then he would proceed to the other radio station over their workshop, and in these positions they would send and receive radio messages, not only between themselves, but in communication with other amateurs near and far away.

The Burton twins were 16 years old. Their father, active in two professions, banking and farming, was one of the leading business men in the New England community in which he lived, but he found time to exercise real interest in the sports and aspirations of his two sons. Both of the latter were mechanically inclined, and this inclination was encouraged by the busy business man in many practical ways.

Walter was ambitious to become an electrical engineer. There was hardly anything in popular electrical affairs that he did not know something about. It was he who first suggested that they take up the study of wireless and install radio instruments in their home. Guy’s ambition was not so definitely formed as that of his brother, but his enthusiasm over the proposition was scarcely less than that of Walter. They had an ideal boys’ workshop, which they built themselves, and on the roof of this 15×20 frame structure was a cupola-like inclosure, which they used as one of their wireless stations. The other, it has been noted, was in their attic den. The aerials over these two stations, by their conspicuous loftiness, advertised the brothers widely as the “wireless twins of Ferncliffe.”

The workshop of the twins was equipped with an outfit of tools and machinery that might well arouse the wonder and admiration of any ambitious boy. The machinery consisted principally of turning lathe, scroll saw and drill, operated with belts, pulleys, shafts and electric motor. The boys not only planned and constructed their shop building, but they wired it electrically and installed and connected the machinery. And when completed, it proved to be no mere toy shop, but a very useful boy institution for repair and construction work about the Burton home.

The boys had received their wireless apparatus as Christmas presents a little more than a year before and immediately set them up. They learned the radio alphabet and soon were laboriously spelling out words to each other. In a few months they had acquired a considerable addition to their vocabulary and spoke of spark gaps, aerials, transformers, keys, helices, tuning coils, condensers, and detectors with something of the ready familiarity of old timers. They were especially elated when they found themselves catching signals from distant wireless operators. This became more and more frequent, as they lived on the coast and not a few passing ships were supplied with radio outfits.

The Burton home was a sort of country seat near the outskirts of the city and was bordered on the east by half a mile of seashore. A small natural harbor added much to the curious interest of the surroundings, being sufficient to accommodate comfortably the 50-foot power yacht owned by Mr. Burton. This harbor was well sheltered by hilly projections, except at one point where the shore dropped down almost to the level of the sea and afforded a good landing place. Here a quay had been built for the yacht. So well protected with bluffs was the cove that the heaviest gales hardly rocked the little vessel in its mooring. Under the brow of the largest bluff had been constructed a pile-supported shed for sheltering the boat in winter.

Ferncliffe is a manufacturing and fishing seaboard town. Half a mile from the Burton home are the municipal docks, where fishing boats tie up and where steamers stop to receive or unload passengers and freight. In the summer months a considerable business of this kind is done.

The house in which the Burtons lived was a large, square, comfortable, white frame dwelling, rather southern in style. Mr. Burton had several men in his employ constantly. One of these was Det Teller, half-sailor, half-farmer, who had worked for the banker-farmer several years. Det was an interesting character. He knew “everything and the whole world.” He had been around the world twice as a seaman and was skilled in the tying of sailors’ knots and the weaving of sailors’ yarns.

His nickname was a “short” for Deuteronomy. Det’s father had been very religious and had given bible names to all his children. The retired sailor was now fifty years old. Six years previously he had discovered in a servant of the Burton family a former girl schoolmate with whom he had been in love twenty-odd years before, and he married her and entered Mr. Burton’s employ as farm foreman. A house was built especially for them on the premises.

Det was really a bright and valuable fellow. In six years he had learned “all about” his employer’s business and could “run any branch of it except the bank.” He was a short, long-armed, broad-shouldered, powerful man, whose natural alertness and jovial disposition seemed not to have been affected seriously by the burden of two score years and ten.

Mr. Burton had owned the yacht, Jetta, for two seasons. It had been named for the boys’ five-year old sister. Det was mate and part of the crew of the vessel, and during the outing months of the year his capacity of farm foreman was almost forgotten, or left in other hands. Originally intended only as a private pleasure craft, the Jetta, under the enterprising ambition of the “wireless twins,” had become, in the last summer, a recognized excursion boat, identified inseparably with the outing happiness of many of the inhabitants of Ferncliffe and neighboring towns. Guy and Walter made up the complement of the crew and acted as joint skippers who usually followed the instructions of the mate. Mr. Burton was merely owner and made no attempt to interfere with the management of the craft when aboard with the mate and one or both of the young captains.

On the morning when Guy and his mother boarded the train for New York city, another passenger of peculiar interest here bought a ticket for the same destination. He was a tall, thin, sharp-eyed, well-dressed man, wearing a high-crowned derby hat and large angular trowel-shaped patent leather shoes. He had had business in Ferncliffe and stopped several days at the Chenoweth House, the best hotel of the place. On the day of his arrival he had read with interest the following local item in the Ferncliffe Gazette:

“H. G. Burton has decided to send his son Guy to London for treatment of his eyes. Guy and his mother will sail from New York in a week. The boy’s eyes will be treated by the famous Dr. Sprague.”

The stranger had registered at the hotel as Stanley Picket of New York. He had planned to return home on the day when he read the above item, but the information it contained caused him to alter his plan. He remained in Ferncliffe until Mrs. Burton and Guy started for New York, when as we have seen, the train bore him also as a passenger.

Walter and Guy noticed the tall, well-dressed man on the platform before the train pulled in, little dreaming what an important part he was destined to play in their affairs within the next few months.

The boy with the amber glasses and his mother boarded the train and took possession of a seat. Soon afterward the tall man with the high-crowned derby and the trowel-shaped patent leathers sat down in the seat just behind them, and the train moved away from the depot.