that there could be anybody in the world who did not
know about radio.

However, if Adam McNulty was mystified, he was also delightedly,
pitifully excited. He followed the boys out to the cluttered back yard
where they were rigging up the aerial, listening eagerly to their
chatter and putting in a funny word now and then that made them roar
with laughter.

Bob brought him an empty soap box for a seat and there the old man sat
hour after hour, despite the fact that there was a chill in the air,
blissfully happy in their companionship. He had been made to understand
that something pleasant was being done for him, but it is doubtful if he
could have asked for any greater happiness than just to sit there with
somebody to talk to and crack his jokes with.

They were good jokes too, full of real Irish wit, and long before the
set was ready for action the boys had become fond of the old fellow.

"He's a dead game sport," Joe said to Bob, in that brief interval when
they had raced home for lunch. "I bet I'd be a regular old crab, blind
like that."

Mrs. Layton put up an appetizing lunch for the blind man, topping it off
with a delicious homemade lemon pie and a thermos bottle full of
steaming coffee.

The way the old man ate that food was amazing even to Jimmy. Maggie was
too busy earning enough to keep them alive to bother much with dainties.
At any rate, Adam ate the entire lemon pie, not leaving so much as a
crumb.

"I thought I was pretty good on feeding," whispered Joe, in a delighted
aside, "but I never could go that old bird. He's got me beat a mile."

"Well," said Jimmy complacently, "I bet I'd tie with him."

If the boys had wanted any reward for that day of strenuous work, they
would have had it when, placing the earphones upon his white head, they
watched the expression of McNulty's face change from mystification to
wonder, then to beatific enjoyment.

He listened motionless while the exquisite music flooded his starved old
soul. Toward the end he closed his eyes and tears trickled from beneath
the lids down his wrinkled face. He brushed them off impatiently and the
boys noticed that his hand was trembling.

It was a long, long time before he seemed to be aware that there was any
one in the room with him. He seemed to have completely forgotten the
boys who had bestowed this rare gift upon him.

After a while, coming out of his dream, the old man began fumbling with
the headphones as if he wanted to tak