ted-up harbour, whence Napoleon the First had
intended to issue forth and descend on perfidious Albion--but didn't;
past cliffs, and bays, and villages further on, until they brought up
off Cape Grisnez. Here the Frenchman let down his trawl, and fished up,
among other curiosities of the deep, the submarine cable!

"Behold! fat is dis?" he exclaimed, with glaring eyes, uplifted brows,
shoulders shrugged, hands spread out, and fingers expanded.

"The sea-sarpint grow'd thin," suggested the Englishman.

"Non; c'est seaveed--veed de most 'strordinair in de vorld. Oui,
donnez-moi de hache, de hax, mon ami."

His friend handed him the axe, wherewith lie cut off a small portion of
the cable and let the end go. Little did that fisherman know that he
had also let our Spark go free, and cruelly dashed, for a time at least,
the budding hopes of two nations--but so it was. He bore his prize in
triumph to Boulogne, where he exhibited it as a specimen of rare seaweed
with its centre filled with gold, while the telegraph clerks at both
ends sat gazing in dismay at their useless instruments.

Thus was the first submarine electric cable destroyed. And with the
details of its destruction little Robin was intimately acquainted, for
cousin Sam had been a member of the staff that had worked that
telegraph--at least he had been a boy in the office,--and in after years
he so filled his cousin's mind with the importance of that cable, and
the grandeur and difficulty of the enterprise, that Robin became
powerfully sympathetic--so much so that when Sam, in telling the story,
came to the point where the Frenchman accomplished its destruction,
Robin used to grieve over it as though he had lost a brother, or a
kitten, or his latest toy!

We need scarcely add that submarine cable telegraphy had not received
its death-blow on that occasion. Its possibility had been demonstrated.
The very next year (1851) Mr T.R. Crampton, with Messrs. Wollaston,
Kuper, and others, made and laid an improved cable between Dover and
Calais, and ere long many other parts of the world were connected by
means of snaky submarine electric cables.

CHAPTER THREE.

EARLY ASPIRATIONS.

One pleasant summer afternoon, Mr Wright, coming in from the office,
seated himself beside his composed little wife, who was patching a pair
of miniature pantaloons.

"Nan," said the husband, with a perplexed look, "what _are_ we to do
with our Robin when he grows up?"

"