What is happening here

[WC -Sx- Jones]

# WARNING:  This is a very basic question -
            Maybe only the beginners
            should answer it?
#! perl
use strict;
use warnings;
my ($first, $last, $out) = '';

while (<>)
        {
        if (/^-----BEGIN/ .. /^-----END/)
                {
                if (/^-----BEGIN/) { $first=$_; next; }
                if (/^-----END/) { $last=$_; next; }
                $out.=$_;
                }
        }
$out =~ s/\s//g;
$out =~ s/(.{128})/$1\n/g;
print "$first$out\n$last\n";
__END__

QUESTION:  Why do I get -

        Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or
        string at sx.perl line 18, <> line 1680
When executing this code with a 1,680 line input file?
        BTW - There is in fact data on line 1,680 ...
-Sx-

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