"Now, girls, which of you would like to try an experiment?" we may suppose Father Franklin to say, in the spirit of Poor Richard.
William stepped down, and an adventurous girl took his place on the experimental stool.
"You have all heard of the electric kiss," said Poor Richard. "Let this young lady give you one. I will prepare her for it."
He did.
Another girl stepped up to receive it. She expected to receive a spark from her friend's lips; but instead of a spark she received a shock that caused her to leap and to bend double, and to utter a piercing cry.
"I don't think that the kissing of young men and young women in public is altogether in good taste," said the philosophers, "but if any of you young men want to salute this lively young lady in that way, there will be in this case no objections."
But none of the young men cared to be thrown into convulsions by the innocent-looking lass, who seemed to feel no discomfort.
Experiments like these filled the city and province with amazement. The philosopher made a spider of burned cork that would run, and cause other people to run who had not learned the wherefore of the curious experiment.
The wonderful Leyden vial became Franklin's companion. He liked ever to be experimenting in what the new force would do. What next? what next? How like lightning was this electricity! How could he increase electrical force?
He says at the end of a long narrative: