ike the school shop. There are so very many con--con--what
you call it? Yes, conflicting. I should like--prefer--choose to come
here, if I may do so."

"Come along. You keep account of your own time here, and you can pay us
when you like. You can get your own materials, or we can get them for
you at the prices we pay. We bought up some old pieces of furniture
cheap to cut up for bases and cabinets--enough walnut to make a hundred.
No charge for it. Help yourself."

"You are, I wish to say it, veree liber--kind--generous. It is too
little that you pay--charge, I mean it. I will ask for your materials
and I will commence--begin--start, eh? on to-morrow. Will that be
satisfy?"

"Any old time. If we are not here, walk in and go to it. Check your
hours up on this pad, see? What is your name?"

"Anthony Sabaste it is. I am called Tony by most. My country it is
Italy, but American I now am. My father is of the city--living there.
Here, now, I will pay you five dollars on acc----"

"No, you won't," said Bill. "We'd rather have you pay after a while and
you can see that the work goes all right. Here, I'll show you the
ropes."

"Ropes? But I care not to make--build a ship. It is a radio----"

"Oh, sure, I get you; but that's only slang. You have been here long
enough, I should guess from your talk, to get on to our American guff.
Well, we're glad to know you, Mr.----"

"Sabaste, but I best like--I prefer calling me Tony. It means in your
language, I get on to it, as fine, grand, fat--no--but swell
out--somebody much, eh?"

"It does, sure! I'll introduce my partner, Augustus Grier; Gus for
short, or he'll get mad. They call me Bill Brown, generally forgetting
the Brown, even here at school, where 'most everyone gets his last name.
First names are more friendly."

"I like it, too. In my native it is more mostly Signor, even to
young--what you call it? Kids, as us, eh?" Tony smiled genially, his
face lighting up most agreeably. "Some they call me 'Wop,' or
'Sphagetti'."

The boys learned that the intelligent young foreigner was in the
graduating class which had escaped a lot of practical radio work; that
he kept much to himself, either because of a real or fancied notion that
social lines might be drawn against him, or because he was naturally
unsocial. But after he began the making of a radio set and came in daily
contact with Bill and Gus, the young Italian seemed to grow a little out
of himself, becoming less retic