The Battery and the Boiler | Page 2

to vilify the sea in all its aspects, except when viewed at a
safe distance from the solid land!
Little Robin's parents were among the latter. His father, a poor
gentleman, procured a situation as accountant in a mercantile house.
His mother busied herself--and she was a very busy little creature--with
the economics of home. She clothed Robin's body and stored his mind.

Among other things, she early taught him to read from the Bible.
As Robin grew he waxed strong and bold and lively, becoming a
source of much anxiety, mingled with delight, to his mother, and of
considerable alarm, mixed with admiration and surprise, to his father.
He possessed an inquisitive mind. He inquired into
everything--including the antique barometer and the household clock,
both of which were heirlooms, and were not improved by his inquiries.
Strange to say, Robin's chief delight in those early days was a
thunderstorm. The rolling of heaven's artillery seemed to afford
inexpressible satisfaction to his little heart, but it was the lightning that
affected him most. It filled him with a species of awful joy. No matter
how it came--whether in the forked flashes of the storm, or the lambent
gleamings of the summer sky--he would sit and gaze at it in solemn
wonder. Even in his earliest years he began to make inquiries into that
remarkable and mysterious agent.
"Musser," he said one day, during a thunderstorm, raising his large eyes
to his mother's face with intense gravity,--"Musser, what is lightenin'?"
Mrs Wright, who was a soft little unscientific lady with gorgeous eyes,
sat before her son, perplexed.
"Well, child, it is--it--really, I don't know what it is!"
"Don't know?" echoed Robin, with surprise, "I sought you know'd
everysing."
"No, not everything, dear," replied Mrs Wright, with a deprecatory
smile; "but here comes your father, who will tell you."
"Does he know everysing?" asked the child.
"N-no, not exactly; but he knows many things--oh, ever so many
things," answered the cautious wife and mother.
The accountant had barely crossed his humble threshold and sat down,
when Robin clambered on his knee and put the puzzling

question.--"Fasser, what is lightenin'?"
"Lightning, my boy?--why, it's--it's--let me see--it's fire, of course, of
some sort, that comes out o' the clouds and goes slap into the
earth--there, don't you see it?"
Robin did see it, and was so awestruck by the crash which followed the
blinding flash that he forgot at the moment to push his inquiries further,
much to his father's satisfaction, who internally resolved to hunt up the
Encyclopaedia Britannica that very evening--letter L--and study it.
In process of time Robin increased in size. As he expanded in body he
developed in mind and in heart, for his little mother, although
profoundly ignorant of electricity and its effects, was deeply learned in
the Scriptures. But Robin did not hunger in vain after scientific
knowledge. By good fortune he had a cousin--cousin Sam
Shipton--who was fourteen years older than himself, and a clerk at a
neighbouring railway station, where there was a telegraphic instrument.
Now, Sam, being himself possessed of strongly scientific tendencies,
took a great fancy to little Robin, and sought to enlighten his young
mind on many subjects where "musser's" knowledge failed. Of course
he could not explain all that he himself knew about electricity--the
child was too young for that,--but he did what he could, and introduced
him one day to the interior of the station, where he filled his youthful
mind with amazement and admiration by his rapid, and apparently
meaningless, manipulation of the telegraph instrument.
Cousin Sam, however, did a good deal more for him than that in the
course of time; but before proceeding further, we must turn aside for a
few minutes to comment on that wonderful subject which is essentially
connected with the development of this tale.
CHAPTER TWO.
REFERS TO A NOTABLE CHARACTER.
Sparks, as a rule, are looked upon as a race of useless and disreputable

fellows. Their course is usually erratic. They fly upward, downward,
forward, and backward--here, there, and everywhere. You never know
when you have them, or what will be their next flight. They often create
a good deal of alarm, sometimes much surprise; they seldom do any
good, and frequently cause irreparable damage. Only when caught and
restrained, or directed, do sparks become harmless and helpful.
But there is one Spark in this world--a grand, glowing, gushing fellow--
who has not his equal anywhere. He is old as the hills--perhaps older--
and wide as the world--perchance wider. Similar to ordinary sparks in
some respects, he differs from them in several important particulars.
Like many, he is "fast," but immeasurably faster than all other sparks
put together. Unlike them, however, he submits to be led by master
minds. Stronger than Hercules, he can rend the