“But you forget, brother, that when a man stands alone he is quite as prominent an object as the trunk of a tree four or five feet high, particularly in an open plain.”

“Quite so.  It is therefore advisable, when severe storms are close upon us, to lie down flat on the ground.”

“Suppose,” remarked Fritz, smiling, “a brigade of soldiers on the march suddenly to collapse in this way, as if before a discharge of grape.”

“And why not?  If it is done in the case of grape-shot, why may it not be done when the artillery is a thousand times more effective?”

“Well, I suspect it would rather astonish the commanding officer, that is all.”

“Then, Willis,” continued Jack, “you must not run during a storm, because the air you put in motion by so doing may draw the electricity into the current.”

“Do the conductors not prevent the lightning from doing harm?”

“Yes, but you cannot carry one of them on your hat.  These rods are only useful in protecting buildings, and then to nothing more than double the area of their length; it is for this last reason that roofs of public buildings have them projecting in all directions.”

“They are a sort of trap set for the lightning, are they not?”

“Yes, and into which it is pretty sure to fall.  Franklin, of whom I spoke just now, was the first to suggest that bars of steel would draw lightning out of a cloud surcharged with electricity.”

“What becomes of it when it is caught?”

“Keeping in view its partiality for bell-pulls, a wire is attached to the rod down which the unconscious fluid glides.”

“Like a powder-monkey from the main-top.”

“Exactly; till it enters a well, and there it is left at the bottom in company with Truth.”

A practical storm had begun to mix itself up with the theory as developed by Jack, but not before they had very nearly reached their destination, where they were waited for with the greatest anxiety.

No sooner had they landed than Sophia ran to meet Willis, who was advancing with Jack.

“Ah, sweetheart,” she said, “Susan has been so uneasy about you.”

“You are a good girl, Miss Soph—­Susan.”

“Oh, if you only knew how frightened we have been!”

“What, do you admit fear to be one of your accomplishments, Miss Sophia?” inquired Jack.

“Certainly, when others are concerned, Master Jack.  But, by the way, do you recollect the chimpanzee?”

“Yes, what about the rascal?”

[Illustration]

“Oh, I must not tell you, mamma would call me a chatterbox; you will know by-and-by.”

In the meanwhile Mary, on her side, was congratulating Toby, who kept scampering between herself and Fritz, at one moment receiving the caresses of the one and at the next of the other, with every demonstration of joy.  This had become an established mode of communication between the young people when Fritz arrived from a lengthened ramble; the intelligent, brute, in point of fact, had assumed the office of dragoman.