The Battery and the Boiler | Page 7

filled with a mixture of glue and melted
butter?"
"What stuff you do talk, Madge! As well might you ask why it would
not do to make a plum-pudding out of nutmegs and coal-tar. There are
some things that no fellow can understand, and of course I don't know
everything!"
The astounding modesty of this latter remark seemed to have furnished
Madge with food for reflection, for she did not reply to it. After a few
minutes' walk the amateur electricians reached the scene of their
intended game--a sequestered dell in a plantation, through which
brawled a rather turbulent stream. At one part, where a willow
overhung the water, there was a deep broad pool. The stream entered
the pool with a headlong plunge, and issued from it with a riotous
upheaval of wavelets and foam among jagged rocks, as if rejoicing in,
and rather boastful about, the previous leap.
The game was extremely simple. The pool was to be the German Ocean,
and a piece of stout cord was to serve as a submarine cable.
The boy and girl were well-matched playmates, for Madge was
ignorant and receptive--in reference to science,--Robin learned and
communicative, while both were intensely earnest.
"Now, this is the battery," said Robin, when he had dug a deep hole
close to the pool with a spade brought for the purpose.
"Yes, and the muddy water in it will do for the mixture of acid and
water," said Madge.

As she spoke, Robin's toe caught on a root, and he went headlong into
the battery, out of which he emerged scarcely recognisable. It was a
severe, though not an electric, shock, and at first Robin seemed inclined
to whimper, but his manhood triumphed, and he burst into a compound
laugh and yell, to the intense relief of Madge, who thought at first that
he had been seriously injured.
"Never mind, Madge," said Robin, as he cleansed his muddy head;
"cousin Sam has often told me that nothing great was ever done except
in the face of difficulties and dangers. I wonder whether this should be
counted a difficulty or a danger?"
"At first I thought it a danger," said Madge, with a laugh, "but the
trouble you now have with the mud in your hair looks like a difficulty,
doesn't it?"
"Why, then, it's both," cried Robin. "Come, that's a good beginning.
Now, Madge, you get away round to the opposite side of the pool, and
mind you don't slip in, it's rather steep there."
"This is England," cried Robin, preparing to throw the line over to his
assistant, who stood eager to aid on the other side, "and you are
standing on--on--what's on the other side of the German Ocean?"
"I'm not sure, Robin. Holland, I think, or Denmark."
"Well, we'll say Denmark. Look-out now, and be ready to catch. I'm
going to connect England and Denmark with a submarine cable."
"Stay!" cried Madge, "is that the way submarine cables are laid, by
throwing them over the sea?"
"N-no, not exactly. They had a steamboat, you know, to carry over the
telegraph from England to France; but we haven't got a steamer--not
even a plank to make-believe one. Cousin Sam says that a good
workman can do his work with almost any tools that come to hand. As
we have no tools at all, we will improve on that and go to work without
them. Now, catch!"

Robin made a splendid heave--so splendid indeed that it caused him to
stagger backward, and again he stumbled into his own battery! This
time, however, only one leg was immersed.
"Another danger!" shouted Madge in great glee, "but I've caught the
cable."
"All right. Now make fast the shore-end to a bush, and we'll commence
telegraphing. The first must be a message from the Queen to the King
of Denmark--Or is it the President?"
"King, I think, Robin, but I'm not sure."
"Well, it won't matter. But--I say--"
"What's wrong now?"
"Why, the cable won't sink. It is floating about on the top of the pool,
and it can't be a submarine cable, you know, unless it sinks."
"Another difficulty, Robin."
"We will face and overcome it, Madge. Cast off the shore-end and I'll
soon settle that."
Having fastened a number of small stones to the cable, this persevering
electrician would certainly have overcome the difficulty if the line had
not, when thrown, unfortunately caught on a branch of the willow,
where it hung suspended just out of Madge's reach.
"How provoking!" she said, stretching out her hand to the utmost.
"Take care--you'll--ha!"
The warning came too late. The edge of the bank gave way, and Madge
went headlong into the pool with a wild shriek and a fearful plunge.
Robin stood rooted to the spot--heart, breath, blood, brain, paralysed