Page:Ballantyne--The Battery and the Boiler.djvu/41

 "Oh, Madge, what a wonderful mind you must have!" said Robin, laughing. "It is so simple."

"Of course," said Madge, "I understand what you mean by troughs and plates and all that, but what I want to know is why that arrangement is necessary. Why would it not do just as well to tempt electricity out of its hiding-hole with plates or slices of cheese and bread, placed one after the other in a trough filled with a mixture of glue and melted butter?"

"What stuff you do talk, Madge! As well might, you ask why it would not do to make a plum-pudding out of nutmegs and coal-tar. There are some things that no fellow can understand, and of course I don't know everything!"

The astounding modesty of this latter remark seemed to have furnished Madge with food for reflection, for she did not reply to it. After a few minutes' walk the amateur electricians reached the scene of their intended game—a sequestered dell in a plantation, through which brawled a rather turbulent stream. At one part, where a willow overhung the water, there was a deep broad pool. The stream entered the pool with a headlong plunge, and issued from it with a riotous upheaval of wavelets and foam among jagged rocks, as if rejoicing in, and rather boastful about, the previous leap.

The game was extremely simple. The pool was