s got in over the bows,
where all was bustle, and noise, and smoke, as the picking-up machinery
panted and rattled.

All day the work went on. Night descended, but still the cable was
coming in slowly, unwillingly,--now jerkily, as if half inclined to
yield, anon painfully, as if changing its mind, until the strain was
equal to two and a half tons. A row of lanterns lighted it, and the men
employed watched and handled it carefully to detect the "fault," while
the clattering wheels played harsh music.

"We'll never find it," growled an impatient young electrician.

As if to rebuke him for his want of faith, the "fault" came in then and
there--at 9:50 p.m., ship's time.

"Ah!" said Mr Field, whose chief characteristic was an unwavering faith
in ultimate success, "I knew we should find it are long. I have often
known cables to stop working for two hours, no one knew why, and then
begin again."

"Well now, Mr Wright, it floors me altogether, does this here talkin'
by electricity."

The man who made this remark to our hero was one who could not have been
easily "floored" by any other means than electricity. He was a huge
blacksmith--a stalwart fellow who had just been heaving the
sledge-hammer with the seeming powers of Vulcan himself, and who chanced
to be near Robin when he paused to rest and mop the streaming
perspiration from his brow, while a well-matched brother took his place
at the anvil.

"You see," he continued, "I can't make out nohow what the electricity
does when it gits through the cable from Ireland to Noofun'land. Of
course it don't actooally speak, you know--no more does it whistle, I
suppose; an' even if it did I don't see as we'd be much the wiser. What
_do_ it do, Mr Wright? You seem to be well up in these matters, an'
not above explainin' of 'em to the likes o' us as ha'n't got much
edication."

Few things pleased Robin more than being asked to impart what knowledge
he possessed, or to make plain subjects that were slightly complex. He
was not always successful in his attempts at elucidation, partly because
some subjects were too complex to simplify, and partly because some
intellects were obtuse, but he never failed to try.

"You must know," he replied, with that earnest look which was apt to
overspread his face when about to explain a difficulty, "that a piece of
common iron can be converted into a magnet by electrifying it, and it
can be unconverted just as fast by removing the ele