s. There were three
Philadelphians who joined with Franklin in the study of the effects that
could be produced by these tubes and the Leyden vial.

Franklin's son William was verging on manhood. He was beyond the years
that we find him experimenting with his father in the old pictures. He
became the last royal Governor of New Jersey some years afterward, and a
Tory, and his politics at that period was a sore grief to his father's
heart. But he was a bright, free-hearted boy now, nearly twenty, and his
father loved him, and the two were harmonious and were companions for
each other.

Franklin, we may suppose, interested the boy in the bristling tubes and
the magical bottle. The stored electricity in the latter was like the
imprisoned genii of the Arabian Nights. Let the fairy loose, he suddenly
mingled with native elements, and one could not gather him again. But
another could be gathered.

The Philadelphia philosophers wondered greatly at the new effects that
Franklin was able to produce from the tubes and the bottle. Did not the
genii in the vial hold the secret of the earth, and might not the earth
itself be a magnet, and might not magnetism fill interstellar space?

The wonder grew, and its suggestions. One of the Philadelphia
philosophers, Philip Sing, invented an electrical machine. A like
machine had been made in Europe, but of this Mr. Sing did not know.

The Philadelphia philosophers discovered the power of metallic points to
draw off electricity.

"Electricity is not created by friction," observed one of these men. "It
is only collected by it."

"And all our experiments show," argued Franklin, "that electricity is
positive and negative."

During the winter of 1746-'47 these men devoted as much of their time as
they could spare to electrical experiments.

"William," said one of the philosophers to the son of Franklin one day,
"you have brought your friends here to see the vial genii; he is a
lively imp. Let me show you some new things which I found he can do."

He brought out a bottle of spirits and poured the liquid into a plate.
"Stand up on the insulating stool, my boy, and let me electrify you, and
see if the imp loves liquor."

The lively lad obeyed. He pointed his finger down to the liquor in the
plate. It burst into flame, startling the audience.

"Now," said another of the philosophers, "let me ask you to give me a
magic torch."

He presented to his finger a candle with an alcoholic wick.