"Then its power to produce magnetism," continued Sam, "was shown by Lord Lindsay's huge electro-magnet. This magnet, you must know, is nothing but a bit of ordinary metal until it is electrified, when it becomes a most powerful magnet. But the instant the current is cut off from it, it ceases to be a magnet. If you understood much about electricity,"

said Sam, looking round on his rapt audience, "I might tell you that it is upon this power of making a piece of iron a magnet or not at pleasure, that depend the Morse and Digne telegraph instruments; but as you don't understand, I won't perplex you further. Well, when a piece of sheet copper was pa.s.sed between the poles of Lord Lindsay's giant magnet, it was as difficult to move as if it had been sticking in cheese--though it was in reality touching nothing!--influenced only by attraction." ("That beats your power over Sam, Madge," whispered Robin.

"No it doesn't," whispered Madge in reply.) "Then, one most beautiful experiment I could not hope to get you to understand, but its result was, that a ten-gallon gla.s.s jar, coated inside and out with perforated squares of tinfoil, was filled with tens of thousands of brilliant sparks, which produced so much noise as completely to drown the voices of those who described the experiment. A knowledge of these and other deep things, and of the laws that govern them, has enabled Sir William Thomson and Mr Cromwell F. Varley to expedite the transmission of messages through very long submarine cables in an enormous degree. Then the aurora borealis was ill.u.s.trated by a large long exhausted tube--"

"I say, Sam," interrupted Rik, "don't you think there's just a possibility of our becoming a large long-exhausted company if you don't bring this interesting lecture to a close?"

"Shame! shame! uncle Rik," cried Robin.

As the rest of the company sided with him, the captain had to give way, and Sam went on.

"I won't try your patience much longer; in fact I have nearly come to an end. In this long exhausted tube, ten feet in length and three inches in diameter, a brilliant and beautiful crimson stream was produced, by means of an induction coil. In short, the occasion and, the proceedings altogether, made it the most interesting evening I have ever spent in my life, e-except--"

Sam paused abruptly, and looked at Madge. Madge blushed and looked down under the table,--presumably for the cat,--and the rest of the company burst into an uproarious fit of laughter, in which condition we will leave them and convey the reader to a very different though not less interesting scene.

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE.

DESCRIBES A HAPPY HOME AND A HAPPIER MEETING.

In a small wayside cottage in the outskirts of one of those picturesque villages which surround London, an old woman sat at the head of a small deal table, with a black teapot, a brown sugar-basin, a yellow milk jug, and a cracked tea-cup before her.

At the foot of the same table sat a young man, with a large knife in one hand, a huge loaf of bread in the other, and a ma.s.s of yellow b.u.t.ter in a blue plate in front of him.

The young man was James Slagg; the old woman was his mother. Jim had no brothers or sisters, and his father chanced to be absent at market, so he had the "old lady" all to himself.

"Well, well, Jim," said Mrs Slagg, with a loving look at her son's flushed face, "you've told me a heap o' wonderful tales about telegrumphs, an' tigers, an' electricity an' what not. If you was as great a liar as you was used to be, Jim, I tell 'ee plain, lad, I wouldn't believe one word on it. But you're a better boy than you was, Jim, an' I do believe you--indeed I do, though I must confess that some on it is hard to swallow."

"Thank 'ee, mother," said Jim, with a pleasant nod, as he cut an enormous slice from the loaf, trowelled upon it a ma.s.s of the yellow b.u.t.ter, and pushed in his cup for more tea.

"It was good of ye, Jim," said the old woman, "to leave all yer fine friends and come straight away here to see your mother."

"Good o' me!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Jim, with his mouth full--too full, we might say--"what goodness is there in a feller goin' _home_, eh? Who's finer, I should like to know, than a feller's mother?"

"Well, you _are_ a good boy, Jim," said the old woman, glancing at a superannuated clock, which told of the moments in loud, almost absurd solemnity; "but if you don't stop talkin' and go on wi' your eatin', you'll lose the train."

"True, mother. Time and tide, they say, wait for no man; but trains is wuss than time or tide, they won't even wait for a woman."

"But why go at all to-day, Jim; won't to-morrow do?"

"No, mother, it won't do. I didn't mean to tell 'ee till I came back, for fear it should be a mistake; but I can't keep nothin' from you, old lady, so I may as well ease my mind before I go. The fact is, I've just heard of the whereabouts of John Shanks--Stumps, you know--my old mate, that I've told you bolted with all our treasure from Bombay. Ah!

mother, if I'd only brought that treasure home wi' me, it's a lady you'd have bin to-day. I had all sorts o' plans for you--a coach an' six was--"

"Never mind your plans, Jim, but tell me about poor Stumps."

"Well, mother, a tramp came past here, an' had a bit of a talk wi' me yesterday. You know I ginerally have a bit of a chat wi' tramps now, ever since that city missionary--G.o.d bless him--pulled me up at the docks, an' began talkin' to me about my soul. Well, that tramp came here early this mornin', sayin' he'd bin in a poor woman's house in the city, where there was a man dyin' in a corner. While he was talkin'

with some o' the people there he chanced to mention my name, an'

observed that the dyin' man got excited when he heard it, and called to the tramp and asked him about me, and then begged him, for love and for money, which he offered him, to come and fetch me to him as fast as he could, sayin' that his name was Stumps, and he knew me. So, you see, as the next train is the first that--you needn't look at the clock so often, old lady; it's full ten minutes yet, and I'll back my legs to do it in three."

"Don't forget to take your Bible wi' you, dear boy."

Jim Slagg rose with a pleasant nod, slapped the breast of his coat, on which the oblong form of a small book in the pocket could be traced, said "Good-day, mother," and left the cottage.

It was not long before he stood in the dark pa.s.sage which led to the room described to him by the tramp. The old woman who rented it gave him her unasked opinion of her lodger before admitting him.

"You've got no notion, sir, what a strange character that young man is."

"O yes, I have; let me see him," said Slagg.

"But, sir," continued the landlady, detaining him, "you must be careful, for he ain't hisself quite. Not that he's ever done anythink wiolent to me, poor young man, but he's strong in his fits, an' he raves terribly."

"Has no doctor bin to see him?" asked Slagg.

"No; he won't let me send for one. He says it's o' no use, an' he couldn't afford to pay for one. An' oh! you've no notion what a miser that poor young man is. He must have plenty of money, for the box as he takes it out on--an' it's at his head he keeps it, day and night, ginerally holdin' it with one hand--seems full o' money, for it's wonderful heavy. I could see that when he brought it here, an' there's no clo'es in it, that I can see, when he opens it, to get at the few pence he wants now an' again. An' he starves hisself, an' says he's not fit to live, an' calls hisself sitch awful names, an'--"

"Well, well, show me his room," said Slagg, with as much decision in his tone as compelled immediate obedience.

In the corner of a small room, on a truckle-bed, with scant bedding, lay the emaciated form of John Shanks, _alias_ Stumps, _alias_ James Gibson.

He had raised himself on one elbow, and was gazing with great l.u.s.trous invalid eyes at the door, when his old comrade entered, for he had been watching, and heard the first sound of footsteps in the pa.s.sage.

"Oh! Jim Slagg," he cried, extending a hand which bore strong resemblance to a claw, it was so thin. "Come to me, Jim, How I've wished an' longed, an'--"

He stopped and burst into tears, for he was very weak, poor fellow, and even strong men weep when their strength is brought low.

"Come now, Stumps," said Slagg, in a serious voice, as he sat down on the bed, put an arm round his old comrade's thin shoulders, and made him lie down, "if you go to excite yourself like that, I'll--I'll--quit the room, an' I won't come back for an hour or more."

"No! O no!" exclaimed the sick man; clutching Slagg's arm with a trembling grip, "don't leave me, Jim--don't, don't! I shall die if you do! I'm dyin' anyhow, but it will kill me quicker if you go."

"Well, I won't go. There, keep quiet, my poor old Stumps."

"Yes, that's it--that's it--I like to hear the old name," murmured the sick man, closing his eyes. "Say it again, Jim--say it again."

"Stumps," said Slagg, getting down on his knees, the better to arrange and grasp his former comrade, "don't be a fool now, but listen. I have come to look after you, so make your mind easy."

"But I've been such a beast to you, Jim; it was so awful shabby," cried Stumps, rousing himself again, "and I've been _so_ sorry ever since.

You can't think how sorry. I have repented, Jim, if ever a man did.

An' I'd have come back and confessed long ago, if I'd had the chance, but I can get no rest--no peace. I've never spent a rap of it, Jim, except what I couldn't help--for you know, Jim, body an' soul wouldn't stick together without a little o' suthin' to eat an' drink; an' when I was ill I couldn't work, you know. See, it's all here--all here--except what little--"

He stopped abruptly, having raised himself to open the lid of the box at his elbow, but his strength failed, and he sank on the pillow with a groan.

"Stumps," said Slagg, "come, old boy, you an' me will have a bit of prayer together."

The sick man opened his great eyes in astonishment. It was so unlike his old friend's brusque rollicking character to propose prayer, that he fancied he must be dreaming, and the possibility of the visit turning out unreal, induced an expression of distress on his haggard countenance. On being ordered, however, in the peremptory and familiar tones of former days, to shut his eyes, he felt rea.s.sured and became calm, while his friend prayed for him.

It was not a set or formal prayer by any means. It sounded strangely like a man asking a friend, in commonplace terms, but _very_ earnestly, to give him what he stood in great need of; and what Jim asked for was the salvation of his friend's soul and his restoration to health. The pet.i.tion, therefore, was remarkably brief, yet full of reverence, for Jim, though naturally blunt and straightforward, felt that he was addressing the great and blessed G.o.d and Saviour, who had so recently rescued his own soul.

After saying "Amen!" which the sick man echoed, Slagg pulled out his Bible and read through the fourteenth chapter of John's gospel, commenting quietly as he went along, while his comrade listened with intense earnestness. At the first verse Jim paused and said, "This wasn't written to holy and sinless men. `Let not your heart be troubled,' was said to the disciples, one o' them bein' Peter, the man who was to deny Jesus three times with oaths and curses, and then forsake Him. The Lord came to save _sinners_. It would be a poor look-out for you, Stumps, if you thought yourself a good man."

"But I don't--oh! I don't, and you _know_ I don't!" exclaimed the sick man vehemently.