Face the fact and go into
the class where you belong. You won't get so nervous and fussed up,
and by and by you may surprise yourself by finding that with time and
experience the desired speed will come."

"I am not aiming to be a crackerjack like you," grinned Dick. "If I
can take down and send any messages at all I shall feel pretty cocky."

"You think that now," returned Bob, ignoring the flattery contained in
the observation. "But by and by you will find yourself discontented
and as crazy to make time as you are in an automobile. There is a
fascination about it."

"Doesn't the Morse Continental bother you a bit?" inquired Mr.
Crowninshield.

"Not a particle. In fact, it has come to be almost as easy reading as
straight English," answered Bob. "The thing that does fuss me
sometimes though is to send and receive in cipher."

"Mercy! Do they do that too?" gasped Mrs. Crowninshield.

"Certainly. Often both in time of war and times of peace confidential
messages which it is not desirable all the world should know have to
be transmitted. Sometimes these are government communications;
sometimes business or personal ones. At any rate, their senders wish
them kept private and hence they are sent in cipher. Many of them are
queer enough, too, when they come in."

"Can you understand them yourself?" asked Nancy.

"Certainly not. It is not intended that any one except the person for
whom they are intended shall know what they mean."

"But I should think since they make no sense you would wonder whether
you had them right," commented Dick.

"I do wonder sometimes," admitted Bob honestly. "When you get a
sequence of queer words or combinations of letters you cannot help
wondering. However, there is not much chance for a mistake, either in
the transmission or in the delivery of such messages, for the operator
is always obliged to send them slower than he does ordinary stuff,
spacing the letters or groups of letters with unusual care.
Furthermore, code words are always repeated once. This gives the man
receiving them a chance to print the letters by hand rather than write
them, a precaution that does much to prevent mistakes. The address and
signature must also be very carefully transmitted. With such
watchfulness at each end of the line it would be only a colossally
stupid person who would blunder."

"But suppose the operator who is transmitting went faster than you
could?" murmured Walter.

"He doesn't as a gener