Johnny did not lack friends. Those who visited him during his brief illness were an interesting lot.  
On the third night, just after darkness had fallen, “The Ferret” appeared. With him was the nameless youth, he of the burning eyes.
 
“The Ferret” seemed nervous and ill at ease. Johnny thought this strange; it was not at all like him. In the light of what took place later it was not to seem so strange.
 
“This lad,” “The Ferret” explained, walking the floor the while, “wants to know more about the city, about men who break the law, and those who are appointed to defend her honest citizens. Particularly he wants to know more about your friends, Drew Lane and Tom Howe.”
 
206
There was no subject closer to Johnny’s heart than the valor of his two young detective friends. So, while “The Ferret” slowly paced the floor, he filled the ears of the eager youth with tales of their daring.
 
“There! There!” “The Ferret” exclaimed at last. “You have told him enough. Knew too much before. You’ll get him killed. He—”
 
The youth shot him a look, and there the conversation ended. The extraordinary pair left soon after. Alone with his thoughts, Johnny meditated upon many matters of more or less importance.
 
“There is,” he told himself, “an indefinable relationship between those two. It is as if they had known each other always, but never too well; and yet as if an unbreakable bond linked them together for life. It is strange, for ‘The Ferret’ is a middle aged man; the other only a boy.”
 
That night he listened as always to the mysterious Voice of the air.
 
This night that earnest Voice made his remarks more sweeping, more pointed and scathing than ever.
 
207
“This city is filled with traitors. And some are traitors who know it not.” Thus the voice of the unknown one rang out into the night, and a hundred thousand, listening, thrilled they knew not why.
 
“When an officer of the law,” he went on, “accepts money from a bootlegger, a gambler or any other law breaker, he is a traitor to the city he has sworn to serve.
 
“But these are not the only traitors.” The voice of the speaker was tense with emotion. “Everything goes out over the air.” This is a slogan of radio workers everywhere. Something was going out this night, memorable words that would not be forgotten.
 
“There are rich traitors,” the Voice went on. “When a rich man pays large sums to crooked politicians so that his taxes on his vast holdings may be reduced, he is a traitor.
 
“There are poor traitors, thousands of them. You may be one. If you have paid some one in your ward ten or twenty or forty dollars to have your taxes reduced, you, too, are a traitor.
 
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“If taxes are unjust, fight them. Fight them in the courts. If the courts fail you, rise up and fight with rifles and machine guns. But never, never stoop to corruption to betray the city you should love.”
 
These were hard words. They were spoken in a tone that told of an earnest desire to serve. There were those listening who found themselves repeating those words of a great Master:
 
“Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killeth the prophets and stoneth them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children togeth............