Pendexter got out at the railroad station, motioning for Lee to follow. He wrote off a telegram, handing it to the operator. All the while Lee stood like one transfixed, staring in fascination at the telegraph instruments on the dispatcher’s table. Almost without knowing it, the boy was mentally calculating on the coils of wire, the shining brass. Electricity ran that thing; here was power hitched up and working.
Pendexter jerked a thumb in the boy’s direction when he had caught the operator’s eye.
“Plumb batty on electricity!” For once the Pendexter roar was silenced to a mere whisper. “Found him down there in the Cove experimenting all by himself. Consarn it, John Akerly, tell him something about electricity! You know plenty. Got to go by the house for a package—be back.” And the Doctor disappeared.
Akerly reached out a long finger and suddenly clickety-clicked the instrument. “Want to know something about that?” he queried sharply, but with a grin wrinkling up his leathery face.
“I—what—yes, sir!” The click and the voice had startled Lee.
“Know anything about batteries?”
“I made some that worked—sort of. You mean putting two metal strips in an acid solution so as to produce an electric current. Then a lot of jars with this stuff in ’em, and wired up right—you set ’em together and that forms a battery—”
“You’ve got it, kid! With that much in your noodle, I reckon I can pass on to you something about this telegraphing business. To begin with, I’ve got a battery here, with a wire from one pole of it passing through my table and going all the way to Birmingham. Say that this wire came all the way back from Birmingham and connected with the other pole of my battery, what would that make?”
“An electric circuit,” answered Lee. “One that—”
“Yes, one that included the Birmingham station in its circle. Only there isn’t any return wire—”