ubmarine telegraphy in my estimation," (_Hear, hear_, from Robin), "and
he sent a reply, which began, `_Your message of this evening received by
me before five o'clock this afternoon_.' Mark that, Captain Rik, the
message received _before_ it was sent, so to speak!"

"Ay, ay, lad--I know--difference of longitude,--fire away."

"Well, I have fired away most of my ammunition now," returned Sam, "and
if you don't haul down your colours, it must be because you have nailed
them to the mast and are blind to reason. I may add, however, that the
Viceroy of India sent a telegram to the President of the United States,
to which he got a reply in seven hours and forty minutes, but the
slowness of this message was accounted for by the fact of accidental and
partly unavoidable delay in transmission both in Washington and London.
At 1:30 a.m. of the 24th the traffic of the line became pressing, and
all complimentary messages ceased with one from Bombay, which said, `Sun
just risen; delightfully cool; raining.'"

"Doesn't it seem as if the Baron Monkhausen's tales were possible after
all?" remarked Mrs Wright, looking as if her mind had got slightly
confused.

"The Baron's tales are mere child's-play, mother," said Robin, "to the
grand facts of electricity."

"That's so, Robin," said Sam, still turning over the leaves of his
note-book, "and we had some magnificent experiments or illustrations at
the fete, which go far to prove the truth of your remark--experiments
which were so beautiful that they would have made the eyes of Letta
sparkle even more gorgeously than they are doing at present, if she had
seen them."

Letta blushed, returned to self-consciousness for a moment, looked down,
laughed, looked up as Sam proceeded, and soon again forgot herself in a
fixed and earnest gaze.

"The two telegraph instruments communicating with India and America,
which stood on two tables, side by side, in Mr Pender's house, were
supplied by two batteries in the basement of the building. Eighty cells
of Daniel's battery were used upon the Penzance circuit for India, and
100 cells on the Brest circuit for America. The ordinary water-pipes of
the house served to connect the batteries with the earth, so as to
enable them to pump their electricity from that inexhaustible
reservoir."

"I was not aware that electricity had to be pumped up through pipes like
water," interrupted Mrs Wright, on whose mild countenance a
complication of puzzled ex