“What a chump I was not to have tried that this morning when they fetched him in here,” said Charlie, as his chum stopped turning the crank of the galvanic battery. “It was a partial failure of the heart’s action, producing a trancelike state. Wait; I’ll get some brandy.”
He rushed into the store, measured out a gill of it, returned, and poured it down the man’s throat.
The effect was instantaneous.
He who but five minutes before had been considered a corpse had actually come back to animation.
CHAPTER II.
THE COPPER SPECIMENS.
The man sat up on the slab, where, like many other unfortunate wretches, he had been placed preparatory to a post mortem.
He stared wildly around him, not comprehending the circumstances in which he was placed.
There was a little of the brandy left in the graduating glass, and Charlie held it to his lips.
He gripped the boy’s hands with his two great, rough fists, almost crushing the glass, and eagerly drained the liquor off.