“And then,” said Uncle John, “take a steamer across the ocean——”
“And,” finished Mr. Prescott, “get back home in less than forty days, wouldn’t that make the world smaller than if we had to sail and sail and sail?”
“Of course,” answered Billy. “Anybody can see that.”
“And, if you were to go alone, Billy,” continued Mr. Prescott, in his very friendliest tone, “you could wire me or ‘phone me or cable me almost anywhere along the route. Wouldn’t that make the world seem very small?
“And what do all these things mean but iron—iron engines and iron rails and iron wires and watches with steel springs and magnetic steel needles in compasses that guide the great steamers through the paths of the sea?”
“Sometimes,” said Billy, in a half-discouraged tone, “I think there’s no end to knowing about iron.”
“That’s not very far from true, Billy,” said Mr. Prescott. “We could sit here till to-morrow morning trying to mention things made of iron, or by means of iron, and then we should be likely to forget many of them.
“If it weren’t for iron and steel implements and tools, men would have hard work to earn a living.
“Dr. Crandon, what does it seem to you that we should lose if we were to lose iron?”
“I’ve been thinking about the arts—surgery, too. We need iron for sculpture, for music, for printing books and papers. We need iron, I should say, for art’s sake.”