is a quiet piece of
plastic dynamite, but the instant his eye is touched, the electric
circuit is, as it were, completed; the mysterious current flashes
through the brain, and fires his detonating heart. Instantly the
gleaming flame shoots with lightning-speed to temples and toes. The
entire man becomes a detonator, and he explodes in a violent hurricane
of kicks, cuffs, and invective! Now, without a detonator--a heart--the
man might have burned with moderate wrath, but he could not have
exploded."

"Don't try illustration, Jeff," said my plain-spoken mother, gently
patting my arm; "it is not one of your strong points."

"Perhaps not; but do you understand me?"

"I think I do, in a hazy sort of way."

Dear mother! she always professes to comprehend things hazily, and
indeed I sometimes fear that her conceptions on the rather abstruse
matters which I bring before her are not always correct; but it is
delightful to watch the profound interest with which she listens, and
the patient efforts she makes to understand. I must in justice add that
she sometimes, though not often, displays gleams of clear intelligence,
and powers of close incisive reasoning, that quite surprise me.

"But now, to return to what we were speaking of--my future plans," said
I; "it seems to me that it would be a good thing if I were to travel for
a year or so and see the world."

"You might do worse, my boy," said my mother.

"With a view to that," I continued, "I have resolved to purchase a
yacht, but before doing so I must complete the new torpedo that I have
invented for the navy; that is, I hope it may be introduced into our
navy. The working model in the outhouse is all but ready for
exhibition. When finished, I shall show it to the Lords of the
Admiralty, and after they have accepted it I will throw study overboard
for a time and go on a cruise."

"Ah, Jeff, Jeff," sighed my mother, with a shake of her head, "you'll
never leave off till you get blown up. But I suppose you must have your
way. You always had, dear boy."

"But never in opposition to your wishes, had I? Now be just, mother."

"Quite true, Jeff, quite true. How comes it, I wonder, that you are so
fond of fire, smoke, fumes, crash, clatter, and explosions?"

"Really," said I, somewhat amused by the question, "I cannot tell,
unless it be owing to something in that law of compensation which
appears to permeate the universe. You have such an abhorrence of fire,