“Look, look, now the water is jumping just as the toad did!” he said.
He grasped the wire and felt that it was getting hot. Breathlessly, he dropped it and stared at the whole apparatus:
“That’s it, that’s it,” he said and talked quite low, in his excitement. “Wait a bit, now, and see.”
He filed the wire quite thin in one place:
“Feel it,” he said. “It’s glowing.”
The disciple did so and quickly drew back his fingers, for he had burnt himself. Two-Legs stood and stared. Then he cut the wire; and the bubbling in the water stopped at once and the thin piece became cold again. He held the two cut ends together; and, the moment they touched each other, the water bubbled and the wire grew hot. He tried it time after time; and, each time, the same thing happened.
“At last, at last, I have found it,” he said.
He sat for a long time silent, with his face buried in his hands, overcome with emotion. The disciple did not quite understand it, but dared not ask. And, in a little while, Two-Legs himself explained it to him:
“Look here, look here!” he said; and his eyes beamed as they had never beamed before. “Don’t you see that I am making electricity in this little glass? I am making it and it’s here. The wonderful force, the force of the lightning, flows along the wire. I cut the wire and the current is interrupted. I connect it again and the force flows once more. Praise be to the loathsome toad who set my thoughts travelling in the right direction!”
“I don’t see the lightning,” said the disciple.