rns!" The lad was out of the car and hastening
along in the wake of a much sunburned station agent in blue denim
overalls.

"Wal, if it ain't Walter King! What you after, young one? I hear
you've become the proprietor of Surfside--bought out the whole darn
place for yourself."

"I did buy it but I'm going to sell it again. It's too small. I can't
get room enough to stretch up there," came impishly from the lad on
the platform.

"Show! You don't say!" drawled Mr. Burns with obvious relish of the
joke. "Well, it ain't wise to be cramped. Maybe you wouldn't get your
growth if you were."

He cast a glance toward the short, thick-set figure behind him.

"I say, Mr. Burns," burst out Walter, "are you terribly busy? I've got
something I want to show you."

"What is it?" demanded the man, halting and holding suspended in his
hand a cerulean blue egg case.

"I don't know what it is--that's just the trouble," answered Walter
mysteriously.

"What you up to anyhow?" demanded Mr. Burns suspiciously.

Walter thrust forth the sheet of paper he had drawn from his pocket.

In his rough, grimy hand the telegraph operator took it.

"Where did you get this?" demanded he, glancing sharply over the top
of his spectacles.

"Why, we have a wireless up at Surfside and this thing--or something
like it that we didn't know enough to write down, came this morning."

"But I heard your brother Bob was up there."

"He had to go to New York yesterday."

"And left you to tend the tape, did he?" grinned the old man.

"Not much. He knows I'd be a duffer at the job," affirmed Walter.

"Mebbe you ain't as much of a duffer as you think. You managed to get
this down on paper."

"We managed to together--Dick and I," explained Walter. "I don't
suppose, though, we got it anywhere near straight. Does it make any
sense at all?"

"Sure it makes sense!" announced Mr. Burns with a vim that quite took
Walter's breath away. "There's queer spots in it here and there--a few
letters that ain't needed, perhaps. Still, you can omit 'em since they
serve no particular purpose."

"But what is the message? What does it say?" clamored Walter all
impatience.

"Well, it ain't so thrillin' you need to go into a thousand pieces
over it," commented the Cape Codder dryly. "Some friend of Mr.
Crowninshield's 'pears to be comin' down here on the afternoon train
bringin' with him his wife--either his wife or daughter."

"What!" Walter ejaculated weakly.

"