While they were playing, Sammy appeared. "Dad," he said, "can I show you something?"

"I wondered where you were," Vic said. "You've been pretty quiet this evening." Having folded for the round, he could take a moment off. "What is it?" he asked. His son wanted advice most likely.

"Now keep your voice down," Margo warned Sammy. "You can see we're playing cards." The intense look on her face and the tremor in her voice indicated that she held a reasonably good hand.

Sammy said, "Dad, I can't figure out how to wire up the antenna." Beside Vic's stack of chips he set down a metal frame with wires and electronic-looking parts visible on it.

"What's this?" Vic said, puzzled.

"My crystal set," Sammy said.

"What's a crystal set?" he said.

Ragle spoke up. "It's something I got him doing," he explained. "One afternoon I was telling him about World War Two and I got to talking about the radio rig we operated."

"Radio," Margo said. "Doesn't that take you back?"

Junie Black said, "Is that what he's got there, a radio?"

"A primitive form of radio," Ragle said. "The earliest."

"There's no danger he'll get a shock, is there?" Margo said.

"None whatever," Ragle said. "It doesn't use any power."

"Let's have a look at it," Vic said. Hoisting the metal frame he examined it, wishing he knew enough to assist his son. But the plain truth was that he knew nothing at all about electronics, and it certainly was obvious. "Well," he said haltingly, "maybe you have a short-circuit somewhere."

Junie said, "Remember those radio programs we used to listen to before World War Two? 'The Road of Life.' Those soap operas. 'Mary Martin.'"

"'Mary Marlin,'" Margo corrected. "That was -- good lord. Twenty years ago! I blush."

Humming _Clair de Lune_, the theme for "Mary Marlin," Junie met the last round of raises. "Sometimes I miss radio," she said.