Читать книгу The Young Wireless Operator—With the U. S. Secret Service. Winning his way in the Secret Service онлайн

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Always it fired Willie’s imagination to see this stirring life along the water-front. And a powerful imagination was one of Willie’s most precious gifts. It was this imagination that had given him the power Roy ascribed to him of being able to interpret things correctly, for Willie did possess that ability in an astonishing degree. Constantly his imagination was at play, working upon anything that caught his eye; just as now, in the things that most of those passing near him saw only as boxes or bundles, he was seeing camel trains crossing the desert, and other sights equally delightful.

No wonder Willie loved this wonderful waterfront, with its argosies from the seven seas; and no wonder that now, after gazing for a time at the flow of traffic before him, he darted across the street and turned south toward the Battery. Powerful memories drew him that way. He must see once more the Staten Island ferry, by which he had so often journeyed to Staten Island during that never-to-be-forgotten spy hunt. And the Aquarium, with its unbelievably odd and curious fish life; the fire-boat, lying ready to dash off to a blaze at a second’s notice; the harbor police-station, with its trim little police boat; and in the distance that grand old memorial of the thing he and all his fellow Americans had so desperately fought for—Liberty—all these things and a hundred others drew him along the water-front as irresistibly as a magnet draws a needle.