ot the slightest cause for
apprehension of any sort or kind."

"Very good!" said the guard gloomily. "Then all I say is, insoolate
'em yourselves. Don't try to put it on me! Or else keep your hands
well outside of the circuit." But the elderly gentleman was not ready
to acquiesce in the conditions pointed at.

"I repeat," said he, "that the protection of the public is, or ought
to be, amply secured by the terms of the Company's charter. If any
loophole exists for the escape of the electric current, all I can say
is, the circumstances call for public inquiry. The safety of the
public is the concern of the authorities."

"Then," said the guard pointedly, "if I was the public, I should put
my hands in my pocket, and not go fishing about for ambiguous property
in corners. There!--what did I tell you? Now you'll say that was me,
I suppose?"

The thing that hadn't been the guard was a sudden crackle that leaped
out in a blue flame under the seat where the man's hand was exploring
for the half-crown. It was either that, or another like it, at the
man's heel. Or both together. A little boy was intensely delighted,
and wanted more of the same sort. The elderly gentleman turned purple
with indignation, and would at once complain to the authorities. They
would take the matter up, he doubted not. It was a disgrace, etc.,
etc., etc.

Rosalind, or Sally, Nightingale showed no alarm. Her merry eyebrows
were as merry as ever, and her smile was as unconscious a frame to her
pearly teeth as ever, when she turned to the mother of the delighted
little boy and spoke.

"There now! It's exactly like that when I comb my hair in very dry
weather." And the good woman was able to confirm this from her own
experience, narrating (with needless details) the strange phenomena
attendant on the head of a young person in quite a good situation at
Woollamses, and really almost a lady, stating several times what she
had said to the young person, Miss Ada Taylor, and what answer she
had received. She treated the matter entirely with reference to the
bearings of the electric current on questions of social status.

But the man did not move, remaining always with his arm under the
seat. Rosalind, or Sally, thought he had run the half-crown home, but
in some fixed corner from which detachment was for a moment difficult.
Wondering why the moment should last so long, she spoke.

"Have you got it?" said she.

But the man spoke never a word, and remain