Page:Ballantyne--The Battery and the Boiler.djvu/369

 "Ah!" whispered Robin to Sam, "that 's the man for me. He 's sure to tell us a good deal that we don't know, and although I have been ransacking Bombay ever since I arrived for information, I don't yet feel that I know much."

"Hold your tongue, Robin, and listen," said Sam.

"Mind your foot, sir," remonstrated one of the steward's assistants, who had a lugubrious countenance.

Robin took his foot out of a soup tureen, and applied himself to listen.

"When I reflect," continued the merchant, "that it is now fourteen years since the first ocean telegraph of any importance was laid,—when I remember that the first cable was laid after an infinity of personal effort on the part of those who had to raise the capital,—when I mention that it was really a work of house-to-house visitation, when sums of £500 to £1000, and even £10,000 were raised by private subscription, with a view to laying a telegraph cable between England and America, when I reflect that the Queen's Government granted the use of one of its most splendid vessels, the Agamemnon (Hear! hear! and applause), and that the American Government granted the use of an equally fine vessel, the Magara (Hear! hear! and another round of applause, directed at the American Consul, who was present),—