“You’ve hit the nail fair on the head,” replied the sailor, with a look of surprise.
“Well, now, that is most remarkable,” said Robin, “for I was born on board of that very ship.”
“You don’t mean it,” said Johnson, looking eagerly at our hero. “Was you really the babby as was born to that poor miserable sea-sick gentleman, Mr Wright—you’ll excuse my sayin’ so—in the middle of a thunder-clap an’ a flash o’ lightnin’ as would have split our main-mast an’ sent us to the bottom, along wi’ the ship, if it hadn’t bin for the noo lightnin’ conductor that Mr Harris, the inventor, indooced our skipper to put up!”
“Yes, I am that very baby,” said Robin, “and although, of course, I remember nothing about the thunder and lightning, or anything else. My father and mother have often told me all about it, and the wonderful deliverance which God mercifully sent when all hope had been given up. And many a time did they speak of you, Johnson, as a right good fellow and a splendid cook.”
“Much obleedged to ’em,” said Johnson, “an’ are they both alive?”
“They were both alive and well when I left England.”
“Come now, this is pleasant, to meet an old shipmate in such pecooliar circumstances,” said the sailor, extending his hand, which Robin shook warmly; “quite as good as a play, ain’t it?”
“Ay,” observed Jim Slagg, who with the others had witnessed this meeting with deep interest, “an’ the babby has kep’ the lighten’ goin’ ever since, though he’s dropped the thunder, for he’s an electrician no less—a manufacturer of lightnin’ an’ a director of it too.”
The sailor wass good deal puzzled by this remark, but when its purport was explained to him, he gave vent to a vigorous chuckle, notwithstanding Sam’s stern order to “lie still.”
“Didn’t I say so?” he exclaimed. “Didn’t I say distinctly, that night, to the stooard—Thomson was his name—‘Stooard,’ said I, ‘that there babby what has just bin born will make his mark some’ow an’ somew’eres.’”