“Yes, it on’y wants hosses an’ clowns to make it all complete,” said Slagg. “Now, that tank is 58 feet 6 inches in diameter, and 20 feet 6 inches deep, an’ holds close upon 900 miles of cable. There are two other tanks not much smaller, all choke-full. An’ the queer thing is, that they can telegraph through all its length now, at this moment as it lies there,—an’ they are doing so continually to make sure that all’s right.”
“Oh! I understand that,” said Robin quickly; “I have read all about the laying of the first cable in 1858. It is the appearance of things in this great ship that confounds me.”
“Come along then, and I’ll confound you a little more,” said Slagg.
He accordingly led his friend from one part of the ship to another, explaining and commenting as he went, and certainly Robin’s wonder did not decrease.
From the grand saloon—which was like a palatial drawing-room, in size as well as in gorgeous furniture—to the mighty cranks and boilers of its engines, everything in and about the ship was calculated to amaze. As Slagg justly remarked, “It was stunnin’.”
When our hero was saturated with the “Big Ship” till he could hold no more, his friend took him back to his berth, and left him there for a time to his meditations.
Returning soon after, he sat down on a looker.
“I say, Robin Wright,” he began, thrusting his hands into his trousers-pockets, “it looks a’most as if I had smuggled you aboard of this ship like a stowaway. Nobody seems to know you are here, an’ what’s more, nobody seems to care. Your partikler owner ain’t turned up yet, an’ it’s my opinion he won’t turn up to-night, so I’ve spoke to the stooard—he’s my owner, you know—an’ he says you’d better just turn into my berth to-night, an’ you’ll get showed into your own to-morrow.”
“But where will you sleep?” asked Robin, with some hesitation.
“Never you mind that, my young electrician. That’s my business. What you’ve got to do is to turn in.”