at
person should immediately possess a radio set if it lay within their
power to give it to him.

On this particular day when so many things happened the boys were
walking down Main Street, talking as usual of their sets and the
marvelous progress of radio.

Although it was still early spring, the air was as warm almost as it
would be two months later. There was a smell of damp earth and pushing
grass in the air, and the boys, sniffing hungrily, longed suddenly for
the freedom of the open country.

"Buck and his bunch have it all their own way," said Herb discontentedly.
"I wouldn't mind being up in a lumber camp myself just now."

"Too early for the country yet," said Jimmy philosophically. "Probably
be below zero to-morrow."

"What you thinking about, Bob?" asked Joe, noticing that his chum had
been quiet for some time.

"I was thinking," said Bob, coming out of his reverie, "of the
difference there has been in generators since the early days of
Marconi's spark coil. First we had the spark transmitters and then we
graduated to transformers----"

"And they still gave us the spark," added Joe, taking up the theme.
"Then came the rotary spark gap and later the Goldsmith generator----"

"And then," Jimmy continued cheerfully, "the Goldsmith generator was
knocked into a cocked hat by the Alexanderson generator."

"They'll have an improvement on that before long, too," prophesied Herb.

"They have already," Bob took him up quickly. "Don't you remember what
Doctor Dale told us of the new power vacuum tube where one tube can take
care of fifty K. W.?"

"Gee," breathed Herb admiringly, "I'll say that's some energy."

"Those same vacuum tubes are being built right now," went on Bob
enthusiastically. "They are made of quartz and are much cheaper than the
alternators we're using now."

"They are small too, compared to our present-day generators," added Joe.

"You bet!" agreed Bob, adding, as his eyes narrowed dreamily: "All the
apparatus seems to be growing smaller these days, anyway. I bet before
we fellows are twenty years older, engineers will have done away
altogether with large power plants and cumbersome machinery."

"I read the other day," said Joe, "that before long all the apparatus
needed, even for transatlantic stations, can be contained in a small
room about twenty-five feet by twenty-five."

"But what shall we do for power?" protested Herb. "We'll always have to
have generators."

"There isn't a