prospects of real cable-laying—robin meets with his first electrical acquaintances.

circumstances require that we should shift the scene and the date pretty frequently in this tale. we solicit the reader’s attendance at an office in london.

the office is dingy. many offices are so. two clerks are sitting in it making faces at each other across their desk. they are not lunatics. they are not imbeciles or idlers. on the contrary, they have frequent spells of work that might throw the toils of an arab ass into the shade. they are fine strapping young fellows, with pent-up energies equal to anything, but afflicted with occasional periods of having nothing particular to do. these two have been sitting all morning in busy idleness. their muscular and nervous systems rebelling, have induced much fidgeting and many wry faces. being original, they have turned their sorrows into a game, and their little game at present is to see which can make a face so hideous that the other shall be compelled to laugh! we have deep sympathy with clerks. we have been a clerk, and know what it is to have the fires of vesuvius raging within, while under the necessity of exhibiting the cool aspect of spitzbergen without.

but these clerks were not utterly miserable. on the contrary, they were, to use one of their own familiar phrases, rather jolly than otherwise. evening was before them in far-off but attainable perspective. home, lawn-tennis, in connection with bright eyes and pretty faces, would compensate for the labours of the day and let off the steam. they were deep in their game when a rap at the door brought their faces suddenly to a state of nature.

“come in,” said the first clerk.

“and wipe your feet,” murmured the second, in a low tone.

a gentleman, with an earnest countenance, entered.

“is mr lowstoft in his office?”

“he is, sir,” said the first clerk, descending from his perch with an air of good-will, and requesting the visitor’s name and business.

the visitor handed his card, on which the name cyrus field was written, and the clerk, observing it, admitted the owner at once to the inner sanctum where mr lowstoft transacted business.

“there’s something up,” murmured the clerk, with a mysterious look at his comrade, on resuming his perch.

“time’s up, or nearly so,” replied the comrade, with an anxious look at the clock:

“the witching hour which sets us free

to saunter home and have our tea—

“approaches.”

“d’you know that that is cyrus field?” said the first clerk.

“and who is cyrus field?” demanded the second clerk.

“o ignoramus! thy name is bob, and thou art not worth a ‘bob’—miserable snob! don’t you know that cyrus field is the man who brought about the laying of the great atlantic cable in 1858?”

“no, most learned fred, i did not know that, but i am very glad to know it now. moreover, i know nothing whatever about cables—atlantic or otherwise. i am as blind as a bat, as ignorant as a bigot, as empty as a soap-bubble, and as wise as solomon, because i’m willing to be taught.”

“what a delicious subject to work upon!” said fred.

“well then, work away,” returned bob; “suppose you give me a discourse on cables. but, i say—be merciful. don’t overdo it, frederick. remember that my capacity is feeble.”

“i’ll be careful, bob.—well then, you must know that from the year 1840 submarine cables had been tried and laid, and worked with more or less success, in various parts of the world. sir w. o’shaughnessy, i believe, began it. irishmen are frequently at the root of mischief! anyhow, he, being superintendent of electric telegraphs in india in 1839, hauled an insulated wire across the hooghly at calcutta, and produced what they call ‘electrical phenomena’ at the other side of the river. in 1840 mr wheatstone brought before the house of commons the project of a cable from dover to calais. in 1842 professor morse of america laid a cable in new york harbour, and another across the canal at washington. he also suggested the possibility of laying a cable across the atlantic ocean. in 1846 colonel colt, of revolver notoriety, and mr robinson, laid a wire from new york to brooklyn, and from long island to correy island. in 1849—”

“i say, fred,” interrupted bob, with an anxious look, “you are a walking dictionary of dates. haydn was nothing to you. but—couldn’t you give it me without dates? i’ve got no head for dates; never could stomach them—except when fresh off the palm-tree. don’t you think that a lecture without dates would be pleasantly original as well as instructive?”

“no, bob, i don’t, and i won’t be guilty of any such gross innovation on time-honoured custom. you must swallow my dates whether you like them or not. in 1849, i say, a mr walker—”

“any relation to hookey?”

“no, sir, none whatever—he laid a wire from folkestone to a steamer two miles off the shore, and sent messages to it. at last, in 1851. mr brett laid down and successfully wrought the cable between dover and calais which had been suggested by wheatstone eleven years before. it is true it did not work long, but this may be said to have been the beginning of submarine telegraphy, which, you see, like your own education, bob, has been a thing of slow growth.”

“have you done with dates, now, my learned friend?” asked bob, attempting to balance a ruler on the point of his nose.

“not quite, my ignorant chum, but nearly. that same year—1851, remember—a mr frederick n. gisborne, an english electrician, made the first attempt to connect newfoundland with the american continent by cable. he also started a company to facilitate intercourse between america and ireland by means of steamers and telegraph-cables. gisborne was very energetic and successful, but got into pecuniary difficulties, and went to new york to raise the wind. there he met with cyrus field, who took the matter up with tremendous enthusiasm. he expanded gisborne’s idea, and resolved to get up a company to connect newfoundland with ireland by electric cable. field was rich and influential, and ultimately successful—”

“ah! would that you and i were rich, fred,” interrupted bob, as he let fall the ruler with a crash on the red-ink bottle, and overturned it; “but go on, fred, i’m getting interested; pardon the interruption, and never mind the ink, i’ll swab it up.—he was successful, was he?”

“yes, he was; eminently so. he first of all roused his friends in the states, and got up, in 1856, the ‘new york, newfoundland, and london telegraph company,’ which carried a line of telegraph through the british provinces, and across the gulf of saint lawrence to saint john’s, newfoundland—more than 1000 miles—at a cost of about 500,000 pounds. then he came over to england and roused the british lion, with whose aid he started the ‘atlantic telegraph company,’ and fairly began the work, backed by such men as brett, bidden, stephenson, brunel, glass, eliot, morse, bright, whitehouse, and a host of others. but all this was not done in a day. cyrus field laboured for years among preliminaries, and it was not until 1857 that a regular attempt was made to lay an atlantic cable. it failed, because the cable broke and was lost. a second attempt was made in 1858, and was successful. in that year, my boy, ireland and newfoundland were married, and on the 5th of august the first electric message passed between the old world and the new, through a small wire, over a distance of above 2000 miles. but the triumph of field and his friends was short-lived, for, soon after, something went wrong with the cable, and on the 6th september it ceased to work.”

“what a pity!” exclaimed bob; “so it all went off in smoke.”

“not quite that, bob. before the cable struck work about 400 messages had been sent, which proved its value in a financial point of view, and one of these messages—sent from london in the morning and reaching halifax the same day—directed that ‘the 62nd regiment was not to return to england,’ and it is said that this timely warning saved the country an expenditure of 50,000 pounds. but the failure, instead of damping, has evidently stimulated the energies of mr field, who has been going about between america and england ever since, stirring people up far and near to raise the funds necessary for another attempt. he gives himself no rest; has embarked his own fortune in the affair, and now, at this moment, in this year of grace 1865, is doing his best, i have no doubt, to induce our governor, mr lowstoft, to embark in the same boat with himself.”

it would seem as if fred had been suddenly endowed with the gift of second-sight, for at that moment the door of his employer’s room opened, and mr lowstoft came out, saying to his visitor, in the most friendly tones, that he had the deepest sympathy with his self-sacrificing efforts, and with the noble work to which he had devoted himself.

bob, in a burst of sudden enthusiasm, leaped off his stool, opened the office-door, and muttered something as the distinguished visitor passed him.

“i beg pardon,” said mr field, checking himself, “what did you say?”

“i—i wish you good luck, sir, with—with the new cable,” stammered the clerk, blushing deeply.

“thank you, lad—thank you,” said mr field, with a pleasant smile and nod, as he went away.

“mr sime,” said mr lowstoft to bob, turning at the door of his room, “send young wright to me.”

“yes, sir,” replied the obedient bob, going to a corner of the room and applying his lips to a speaking-tube.

now young wright was none other than our hero robin grown up to the mature age of fifteen.

he was perched on the top of a three-legged stool, and, from the slow and intensely earnest manner in which his head turned from side to side as he wrote, it was quite evident that he dotted all his i’s and stroked all his t’s with conscientious care. as he sat there—a sturdy little broad-shouldered fellow, so deeply engrossed with his work that he was oblivious of all around—he seemed the very beau-idéal of a painstaking, hard-working clerk. so deeply was he engrossed in his subject—the copying of an invoice—that he failed to hear the voice of his fellow-clerk, although the end of the speaking-tube was not far from where he sat. after listening a few seconds at the other end of the tube, bob sime repeated the summons with such vigour that robin leaped from his stool as though he had received one of his favourite electric shocks. a minute later he stood in the presence of the head of the house.

“robert wright,” said the head, pushing his spectacles up on his brow, “i shall be sorry to lose your services, but—”

he paused and turned over the papers before him, as if searching for something, and robin’s heart sank. was he going to be dismissed? had he done anything wrong, or had he unwittingly neglected some duty?

“ah! here it is,” resumed mr lowstoft, “a letter from a friend who has come by a slight injury to his right hand, and wants a smart amanuensis and general assistant. now i think of sending you to him, if you have no objection.”

as the head again paused while glancing over the letter, robin ventured timidly to state that he had very strong objections; that he was very much satisfied with his situation and work, and had no desire to change.

mr lowstoft did not appear to listen to his remarks, but said suddenly— “you’ve studied the science of electricity, i believe?”

“yes, sir—to some extent,” answered the lad, with a look of surprise.

“i know you have. your father has told me about your tastes and studies. you’ve heard of mr cyrus field, i presume?”

“indeed i have,” said robin, brightening up, “it was through his efforts that the atlantic cable was laid in 1858—which unfortunately went wrong.”

“well, my boy, it is through his efforts that another cable is to be laid in this year 1865, which we all hope sincerely won’t go wrong, and my friend, who wants an assistant, is one of the electricians connected with the new expedition. would you like to go?”

robin’s eyes blazed, and he could scarcely find breath or words to express his willingness—if his father did not object.

“go home at once, then, and ask leave, for the great eastern is almost ready for sea, and you have to hasten your preparations.”

robin stroked no more t’s and dotted no more i’s that day. we fear, indeed, that he even left the invoice on his desk unfinished, with the last i imperfect.

bursting into his father’s house, he found madge—now become a pretty little slip of feminine thread-paper—seated at the piano agonising over a chord which her hand was too small to compass.

“madge, madge, cousin madge!” he shouted, seizing both the extended little hands and kissing the musical wrinkles from her brow, “why am i like a magnet? you’ll never guess.”

“because you attract everybody to you,” said madge promptly.

“pooh! not at all. a magnet doesn’t attract every body. it has two poles, don’t you know, and repels some bodies. no, madge, it’s because i have been electrified.”

“indeed? and what has electrified you, robin?”

“the atlantic cable, madge.”

“well, that ought to be able to do it powerfully,” returned madge, with a laugh; “but tell me all about it, and don’t make more bad conundrums. i’m sure something has happened. what is it?”

mrs wright, entering at the moment, her son calmed himself as well as he could, and sat down to tell his tale and talk the matter over.

“now, what think you, mother? will father consent?”

“i think he will, robin, but before going into the matter further, i will lay it before our father in heaven. he must show us the way, if we are to go right.”

according to invariable custom, robin’s mother retired to her own room to consider the proposal. thereafter she had a long talk with her husband, and the result was that on the following day our hero found himself in a train with a small new portmanteau by his side, a new billy-cock hat on his head, a very small new purse in his pocket, with a remarkably small sum of money therein, and a light yet full heart in his breast. he was on his way to the nore, where the great eastern lay, like an antediluvian macaroni-eater, gorging itself with innumerable miles of atlantic cable.

to say truth, robin’s breast—capacious though it was for his size—could hardly contain his heart that day. the dream of his childhood was about to be realised! he had thirsted for knowledge. he had acquired all that was possible in his father’s limited circumstances. he had, moreover, with the valuable assistance of sam shipton, become deeply learned in electrical science. he had longed with all his heart to become an electrician—quite ready, if need were, to commence as sweeper of a telegraph-office, but he had come to regard his desires as too ambitious, and, accepting his lot in life with the quiet contentment taught him by his mother, had entered on a clerkship in a mercantile house, and had perched himself, with a little sigh no doubt, yet cheerfully, on the top of a three-legged stool. to this stool he had been so long attached—physically—that he had begun to regard it almost as part and parcel of himself, and had made up his mind that he would have to stick to it through life. he even sometimes took a quaint view of the matter, and tried to imagine that through long habit it would stick to him at last, and oblige him to carry it about sticking straight out behind him; perhaps even require him to take it to bed with him, in which case he sometimes tried to imagine what would be the precise effect on the bedclothes if he were to turn from one side to the other. thus had his life been projected in grey perspective to his mental eye.

but now—he actually was an electrician-elect on his way to join the biggest ship in the world, to aid in laying the greatest telegraph cable in the world, in company with some of the greatest men in the universe! it was almost too much for him. he thirsted for sympathy. he wanted to let off his feelings in a cheer, but life in a lunatic asylum presented itself, and he refrained. there was a rough-looking sailor lad about his own age, but much bigger, on the seat opposite, (it was a third class). he thought of pouring out his feelings on him—but prudence prevented. there is no saying what might have been the result, figuratively speaking, to his boiler if the sailor lad had not of his own accord opened a safety-valve.

“you seems pretty bobbish this morning, young feller,” he said, after contemplating his vis-à-vis, for a long time in critical silence. “bin an’ took too much, eh?”

“i beg your pardon,” said robin, somewhat puzzled.

“you’re pritty considerable jolly, i say,” returned the lad, who had an honest, ugly face; and was somewhat blunt and gruff in manner.

“i am indeed very jolly,” said robin, with a bland smile, “for i’m going to help to lay the great atlantic cable.”

“wot’s that you say?” demanded the lad, with sudden animation.

robin repeated his remark.

“well, now, that is a go! why, i’m goin’ to help lay the great atlantic cable too. i’m one the stooard’s boys. what may you be, young feller?”

“me? oh! i’m—i—why, i’m on the electrical staff—i’m—” he thought of the word secretary, but a feeling of modesty induced him to say—“assistant to one of the electricians.”

“which ’un?” demanded the lad curtly.

“mr smith.”

“mr smith, eh? well—it ain’t an unusual name—smith ain’t. p’r’aps you’ll condescend on his first name, for there’s no less than three smiths among the electricians.”

“ebenezer smith, i believe,” said robin.

“ebbysneezer smith—eh? well, upon my word that’s a smith-mixtur that i’ve never heerd on before. i don’t know ’im, but he’s all right, i dessay. they’re a rum lot altogether.”

whether this compliment was meant for the great smith family in general, or the electrical branch in particular, robin could not guess, and did not like to ask. having thus far opened his heart, however, he began to pour out its contents, and found that the ugly sailor lad was a much more sympathetic soul than he had been led to expect from his looks. having told his own name, he asked that of his companion in return.

“my name—oh! it’s slagg—jim slagg; james when you wants to be respeckful—slagg when familiar. i’m the son o’ jim slagg, senior. who he was the son of is best known to them as understands the science of jinnylology. but it don’t much matter, for we all runs back to adam an’ eve somehow. they called me after father, of course; but to make a distinction they calls him jimmy—bein’ more respeckful-like,—and me jim. it ain’t a name much to boast of, but i wouldn’t change it with you, young feller, though robert ain’t a bad name neither. it’s pretty well-known, you see, an’ that’s somethin’. then, it’s bin bore by great men. let me think—wasn’t there a robert the great once?”

“i fear not,” said robin; “he is yet in the womb of time.”

“ah, well, no matter; but there should have bin a robert the great before now. anyhow, there was robert the bruce—he was a king, warn’t he, an’ a skull-cracker? then there was robert stephenson, the great engineer—he’s livin’ yet; an’ there was robert the—the devil, but i raither fear he must have bin a bad ’un, he must, so we won’t count him. of course, they gave you another name, for short; ah, robin! i thought so. well, that ain’t a bad name neither. there was robin hood, you know, what draw’d the long-bow a deal better than the worst penny-a-liner as ever mended a quill. an’ there was a robin goodfellow, though i don’t rightly remember who he was exactly.”

“one of shakespeare’s characters,” interposed robin.

“jus’ so—well, he couldn’t have bin a bad fellow, you know. then, as to your other name, wright—that’s all right, you know, and might have bin writer if you’d taken to the quill or the law. anyhow, as long as you’re wright, of course you can’t be wrong—eh, young feller?”

jim slagg was so tickled with this sudden sally that he laughed, and in so doing shut his little eyes, and opened an enormous mouth, fully furnished with an unbroken set of splendid teeth.

thus pleasantly did robin while away the time with his future shipmate until he arrived at the end of his journey, when he parted from jim slagg and was met by ebenezer smith.

that energetic electrician, instead of at once taking him on board the great eastern, took him to a small inn, where he gave him his tea and put him through a rather severe electrical examination, out of which our anxious hero emerged with credit.

“you’ll do, robin,” said his examiner, who was a free-and-easy yet kindly electrician, “but you want instruction in many things.”

“indeed i do, sir,” said robin, “for i have had no regular education in the science, but i hope, if you direct me what to study, that i shall improve.”

“no doubt you will, my boy. meanwhile, as the big ship won’t be ready to start for some time, i want you to go to the works of the telegraph construction and maintenance company, see the making of the cable, learn all you can, and write me a careful account of all that you see, and all that you think about it.”

robin could not repress a smile.

“why, boy, what are you laughing at?” demanded mr smith, somewhat sternly.

robin blushed deep scarlet as he replied—

“pardon me, sir, but you said i am to write down all that i think about it.”

“well, what then?”

“i—i’m afraid, sir,” stammered robin, “that if i write down all i think about the atlantic cable, as well as all that i see, i shall require a very long time indeed, and a pretty large volume.”

mr smith gazed at our hero for some time with uplifted brows, then he shook his head slowly and frowned, then he nodded it slightly and smiled. after that he laughed, or rather chuckled, and said—

“well, you may go now, and do what i have told you—only omitting most of what you think. a small portion of that will suffice! don’t hurry back. go home and make a fair copy of your observations and thoughts. i’ll write when i require you. stay—your address? ah! i have it in my note-book. what’s your first name, mister wright?”

robin grew two inches taller, or more, on the spot; he had never been called mister before, except in jest!

“robert, sir,” he replied.

“robert—ha! h’m! i’ll call you bob. i never could stand ceremony, so you’ll accustom yourself to the new name as quickly as you can—but perhaps it’s not new to you?”

“please, sir, i’ve been used to robin; if you have no objection, i should—”

“no objection—of course not,” interrupted mr smith; “robin will do quite as well, though a little longer; but that’s no matter. good-bye, robin, and—and—don’t think too hard. it sometimes hurts digestion; good-bye.”

“well, what d’ee think of ebbysneezer smith, my electrical toolip?” asked jim slagg, whom robin encountered again at the station. “he’s a wiry subject, i s’pose, like the rest of ’em?”

“he’s a very pleasant gentleman,” answered robin warmly.

“oh, of coorse he is. all the smiths are so—more or less. they’re a glorious family. i knows at least half a dozen of ’em in what superfine people call the ‘slums’ of london.”

“and i know more than half a dozen of ’em,” retorted robin, somewhat sharply, “in what unrefined people call the haristocracy of london.”

“whew!” whistled mister slagg, gazing at robin in silent surprise.

what the whistle implied was not explained at that time, because the locomotive whistle took up the tune with intense violence, causing a rush to the train, in which the two lads—like many other friends—were abruptly parted for a season.