Days went by and
still he held up his end and was a great favorite with all the force.
There was a local instrument in the office, and one of the operators
wrote the Morse alphabet for him, and ever after that he kept pegging
away at the key. He practiced writing and it wasn't many weeks before
he was getting to be something of an operator. I went out to the main
line battery room one evening to give some instructions to the man in
charge and there I discovered Master Dick with a battery syringe in one
hand and a brush in the other deeply engrossed in monkeying with the
jars.
"Look here, you young rascal," I said sharply, "what are you doing in
here? First thing you know you will short circuit some of these
batteries and then there'll be the de'il to pay: Don't you ever let me
catch you out here again, or I'll fire you bodily."
"I hain't been doing nothin', Mister Bates, I just wanted to see what
made the old thing go tick tick. Wot's all them glass jars for wid the
green water and the tin in?"
I explained to him as well as I could the construction of the gravity
battery.
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