“No.  And I hear that there, iron rods only are in use.  They should have mine, which are copper.  Iron is easily fused.  Then they draw out the rod so slender, that it has not body enough to conduct the full electric current.  The metal melts; the building is destroyed.  My copper rods never act so.  Those Canadians are fools.  Some of them knob the rod at the top, which risks a deadly explosion, instead of imperceptibly carrying down the current into the earth, as this sort of rod does. Mine is the only true rod.  Look at it.  Only one dollar a foot.”

“This abuse of your own calling in another might make one distrustful with respect to yourself.”

“Hark!  The thunder becomes less muttering.  It is nearing us, and nearing the earth, too.  Hark!  One crammed crash!  All the vibrations made one by nearness.  Another flash.  Hold!”

“What do you?” I said, seeing him now, instantaneously relinquishing his staff, lean intently forward towards the window, with his right fore and middle fingers on his left wrist.  But ere the words had well escaped me, another exclamation escaped him.

“Crash! only three pulses—­less than a third of a mile off—­yonder, somewhere in that wood.  I passed three stricken oaks there, ripped out new and glittering.  The oak draws lightning more than other timber, having iron in solution in its sap.  Your floor here seems oak.

“Heart-of-oak.  From the peculiar time of your call upon me, I suppose you purposely select stormy weather for your journeys.  When the thunder is roaring, you deem it an hour peculiarly favorable for producing impressions favorable to your trade.”

“Hark!—­Awful!”

“For one who would arm others with fear you seem unbeseemingly timorous yourself.  Common men choose fair weather for their travels:  you choose thunder-storms; and yet—­”

“That I travel in thunder-storms, I grant; but not without particular precautions, such as only a lightning-rod man may know.  Hark!  Quick—­look at my specimen rod.  Only one dollar a foot.”

“A very fine rod, I dare say.  But what are these particular precautions of yours?  Yet first let me close yonder shutters; the slanting rain is beating through the sash.  I will bar up.”

“Are you mad?  Know you not that yon iron bar is a swift conductor?  Desist.”

“I will simply close the shutters, then, and call my boy to bring me a wooden bar.  Pray, touch the bell-pull there.

“Are you frantic?  That bell-wire might blast you.  Never touch bell-wire in a thunder-storm, nor ring a bell of any sort.”

“Nor those in belfries?  Pray, will you tell me where and how one may be safe in a time like this?  Is there any part of my house I may touch with hopes of my life?”

“There is; but not where you now stand.  Come away from the wall.  The current will sometimes run down a wall, and—­a man being a better conductor than a wall—­it would leave the wall and run into him.  Swoop! That must have fallen very nigh.  That must have been globular lightning.”