Page:Ballantyne--The Battery and the Boiler.djvu/240

 sailor, extending his hand, which Robin shook warmly; "quite as good as a play, ain't it?"

"Ay," observed Jim Slagg, who with the others had witnessed this meeting with deep interest, "an' the babby has kep' the lighten' goin ever since, though he 's dropped the thunder, for he 's an electrician no less—a manufacturer of lightnin' an' a director of it too."

The sailor was a good deal puzzled by this remark, but when its purport was explained to him, he gave vent to a vigorous chuckle, notwithstanding Sam's stern order to "lie still."

"Didn't I say so?" he exclaimed. "Didn't I say distinctly, that night, to the stooard—Thomson was his name—'Stooard,' said I, 'that there babby what has just bin born will make his mark some'ow an' somew'eres.

"Well, but I have not made my mark yet," said Robin, laughing, "so you 're not a true prophet, at least time has not yet proved your title."

"Not yet proved it!" cried Johnson with vehemence, "why, how much proof do you want? Here you are, not much more than a babby yet—any'ow hardly a man—and, besides havin' bin born in thunder, lightnin', wind, an' rain, you 've laid the Atlantic Gable, you 've took up lightnin' as a profession—or a plaything,—you 've helped to save the life of John Johnson, an' you 've got comfortably