see a-lying
here, if I had never heard of it neither! I'll tell you how it was, sir.
My mate, George Watkins, and there ain't no better man nowheres if
you go clear round the globe--George Watkins is one of these men with
inquiring minds, always a-hungering for knowledge, and so George off
he goes week after week to the lectures up at the Huxley Institute. You
know it; in that yallow building over by Nonpareil Square. And George
often he told me about the wonderful things he learned there, and among
others he was fond of explaining to me about frictional electricity.

"It seems, sir, for you may not know it any" more'n I knowed it until
George explained it to me, that there's three different kinds of
electricity. There's the kind you make with a steam engine, and the
kind you make with acid, and the kind you make with friction. Well, sir,
would you believe--or, let me say first, have you ever rubbed a black
cat on the back in a dark room and seen the sparks fly? Of course, and,
sir, I know it's almost beyond belief, but, positive, they told George
Watkins, my mate, up at the Huxley Institute, that them sparks and the
aurora borealis that you see sometimes a-lighting up the heavens is
one and the same thing! Wonderful, isn't it, sir, that Science should
discover that a black cat is some kind of kin to the aurora borealis?
But George says that's what they said, for the aurora borealis is caused
by the earth a-rolling around and rubbing the air just as the sparks is
caused by stroking the cat's back.

"And George he says that this here frictional electricity is the only
kind that'll cure pain. The steam-engine kind won't do it, and the acid
kind won't do it, but the frictional kind'll do it every time if you
only know how to apply it.

"Well, sir, now I pass to the sorrerful part of my story. There is a
girl named Bella Dougherty that does housework for a man named Muffitt,
and a mighty nice girl she is; or, I used to think her nice. Maybe you
know where Mr. Muffitt lives, on 149th Street, just above Parvin Street,
the third house on the left with white shutters.

"Anyhow, I got to be fond of Bella and often used to set and talk with
her in the evenings in Mr. Muffitt's kitchen, and maybe have two or
three other girls come in sometimes, with a few men; though I never
cared, sir, for much flocking together at such times, for Bella
Dougherty she was good enough company for me, just her and I by
ourselves.

"Howsomdeve