In the Track of the Troops | Page 4

mean the violent explosion of a large cartridge by means of a small detonator. Take, for example, a schoolmaster, and suppose him to be a dynamite cartridge. His heart is a detonating cap. The schoolroom and boys form a galvanic battery. His brain may be likened to a conducting-wire. He enters the schoolroom; the chemical elements are seething in riot, books are being torn and thrown, ink spilt, etcetera. Before opening the door, the good man is a quiet piece of plastic dynamite, but the instant his eye is touched, the electric circuit is, as it were, completed; the mysterious current flashes through the brain, and fires his detonating heart. Instantly the gleaming flame shoots with lightning-speed to temples and toes. The entire man becomes a detonator, and he explodes in a violent hurricane of kicks, cuffs, and invective! Now, without a detonator--a heart--the man might have burned with moderate wrath, but he could not have exploded."
"Don't try illustration, Jeff," said my plain-spoken mother, gently patting my arm; "it is not one of your strong points."
"Perhaps not; but do you understand me?"
"I think I do, in a hazy sort of way."
Dear mother! she always professes to comprehend things hazily, and indeed I sometimes fear that her conceptions on the rather abstruse matters which I bring before her are not always correct; but it is delightful to watch the profound interest with which she listens, and the patient efforts she makes to understand. I must in justice add that she sometimes, though not often, displays gleams of clear intelligence, and powers of close incisive reasoning, that quite surprise me.
"But now, to return to what we were speaking of--my future plans," said I; "it seems to me that it would be a good thing if I were to travel for a year or so and see the world."
"You might do worse, my boy," said my mother.
"With a view to that," I continued, "I have resolved to purchase a yacht, but before doing so I must complete the new torpedo that I have invented for the navy; that is, I hope it may be introduced into our navy. The working model in the outhouse is all but ready for exhibition. When finished, I shall show it to the Lords of the Admiralty, and after they have accepted it I will throw study overboard for a time and go on a cruise."
"Ah, Jeff, Jeff," sighed my mother, with a shake of her head, "you'll never leave off till you get blown up. But I suppose you must have your way. You always had, dear boy."
"But never in opposition to your wishes, had I? Now be just, mother."
"Quite true, Jeff, quite true. How comes it, I wonder, that you are so fond of fire, smoke, fumes, crash, clatter, and explosions?"
"Really," said I, somewhat amused by the question, "I cannot tell, unless it be owing to something in that law of compensation which appears to permeate the universe. You have such an abhorrence of fire, fumes, smoke, crash, clatter, and explosions, that your only son is bound, as it were, to take special delight in chemical analysis and combination, to say nothing of mechanical force and contrivance, in order that a balance of some sort may be adjusted which would otherwise be thrown out of order by your--pardon me--comparative ignorance of, and indifference to such matters."
"Nay, Jeff," replied my mother, gently, with a look of reproof on her kind face; "ignorance if you will, but not indifference. I cannot be indifferent to anything that interests you."
"True; forgive me; I should have said `dislike.'"
"Yes, that would have been correct, Jeff, for I cannot pretend to like the bursting, smoking, and ill-smelling things you are so fond of; but you know I am interested in them. You cannot have forgotten how, when you were a boy, I used to run at your call to witness your pyrotechnic, hydraulic, mechanic, and chemic displays--you see how well I remember the names--and how the--"
"The acids," I interrupted, taking up the theme, "ruined your carpets and table-cloths, and the smoke stifled and blinded, while the noise and flames terrified you; no, mother, I have not forgotten it, nor the patient way you took the loss of your old silk dress, or--"
"Ah! yes," sighed the dear old lady, with quite a pitiful look, "if it had been any other than my wedding dress, which--but--well, it's of no use regretting now; and you know, Jeff, I would not have checked you for worlds, because I knew you were being led in the right way, though, in my folly, I sometimes wished that the way had been a little further removed from smoke and smells. But, after all, you were very careful, dear boy--wonderfully so, for your years, and your little accidents did not give