EXTRAORDINARY RESULT OF AN ATTEMPT AT AMATEUR CABLE-LAYING.

Time continued to roll additional years off his reel, and rolled out Robin and Madge in length and breadth, though we cannot say much for thickness. Time also developed their minds, and Robin gradually began to understand a little more of the nature of that subtle fluid--if we may venture so to call it--under the influence of which he had been born.

"Come, Madge," he said one day, throwing on his cap, "let us go and play at cables."

Madge, ever ready to play at anything, put on her sun-bonnet and followed her ambitious leader.

"Is it to be land-telegraphs to-day, or submarine cables?" inquired Madge, with as much gravity and earnestness as if the world's welfare depended on the decision.

"Cables, of course," answered Robin, "why, Madge, I have done with land-telegraphs now. There's nothing more to learn about them. Cousin Sam has put me up to everything, you know. Besides, there's no mystery about land-lines. Why, you've only got to stick up a lot o' posts with insulators screwed to 'em, fix wires to the insulators, clap on an electric battery and a telegraph instrument, and fire away."

"Robin, what _are_ insulators?" asked Madge, with a puzzled look.

"Madge," replied Robin, with a self-satisfied expression on his pert face, "this is the three-hundred-thousandth time I have explained that to you."

"Explain it the three-hundred-thousand-and-first time, then, dear Robin, and perhaps I'll take it in."

"Well," began Robin, with a hypocritical sigh of despair, "you must know that everything in nature is more or less a conductor of electricity, but some things conduct it so well--such as copper and iron--that they are called _conductors_, and some things--such as gla.s.s and earthenware--conduct it so _very_ badly that they scarcely conduct it at all, and are called _non-conductors_. D'ee see?"

"Oh yes, I see, Robin; so does a bat, but he doesn't see well. However, go on."

"Well, if I were to run my wire through the posts that support it, my electricity would escape down these posts into the earth, especially if the posts were wet with rain, for water is a good conductor, and Mister Electricity has an irresistible desire to bolt into the earth, like a mole."

"Naughty fellow!" murmured Madge.

"But," continued Robin impressively, "if I fix little lumps of gla.s.s with a hole in them to the posts, and fix my wires to these, Electricity cannot bolt, because the gla.s.s lumps are non-conductors, and won't let him pa.s.s."

"How good of them!" said Madge.

"Yes, isn't it? So, you see," continued Robin, "the gla.s.s lumps are insulators, for they cut the electricity off from the earth as an island is, or, at all events, appears to be, cut off from it by water; and Mister Electricity _must_ go along the wires and do what I tell him. Of course, you know, I must make my electricity first in a battery, which, as I have often and often told you, is a trough containing a mixture of acid and water, with plates or slices of zinc and copper in it, placed one after the other, but not touching each other. Now, if I fix a piece of wire to my first copper slice or plate, and the other end of it to my last zinc slice or plate, immediately electricity will begin to be made, and will fly from the copper to the zinc, and so round and round until the plates are worn out or the wire broken. D'ee see?"

"No, Robin, I don't see; I'm blinder than the blindest mole."

"Oh, Madge, what a wonderful mind you must have!" said Robin, laughing.

"It is _so_ simple."

"Of course," said Madge, "I understand what you mean by troughs and plates and all that, but what I want to know is _why_ that arrangement is necessary. Why would it not do just as well to tempt electricity out of its hiding-hole with plates or slices of cheese and bread, placed one after the other in a trough filled with a mixture of glue and melted b.u.t.ter?"

"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 a.s.sistant, 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 sh.o.r.e-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 sh.o.r.e-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 for the moment--gazing at the spot where his playmate had disappeared.

Another moment and her head and hands appeared. She struggled bravely for life, while the circling current carried her quickly to the lower end of the pool.