Stand By

moment he crouched there, fighting against a wild desire to crawl back under the clutter of rubbish, and hide. What did

ounded, dying! He couldn't crouch here like a craven and leave them to their fate. Lee forced himself to action. He began to crawl across the room t

ning loudly, "Lordy, Lordy, the lightning of t

ar one?" burst from Lee. "If you're not hurt yourself, c

injury save fright, rolled to his feet and came on the

slumped sideways, half fallen out of his chair.

the long figure out at ease on the floor, sponged the face with a wet handkerchief, and rubbed hands and wrists. At last

ing-must have been that old fool, Johnny Po

e wheel?" stammere

old Gem Renaud's black eyes snapped a

the uneducated squatters here in the village were about on this level too. Once, long ago, when Renaud had been experimenting with his crude electrical devices, a cyclone swept the fri

has taken another shot at the contraption. If you'll dig out the bullet that's imbedded in the wall beyond our wheel of glass, I'll wag

And sure enough, the bullet that he dug out was not made of lead, but of silver. A rough lump that old Poolak must have molded for himself, melting down a hard-earned twenty-five cent

d floor of the dwelling house. It was safer up there. A fellow didn't have it hanging over his

retofore. There was the hollow brass prime conductor, supported on its glass standard and so fixed on its frame that the metal points set on the ends of its curved out-branching arms nearly touched the glass plate. L

ain hung from the fur cushions so as to just da

d lay hands on Master Lloyd's old schoolbook on the sciences. It explains lots. Let me see, though, it goes something like this. By the friction of th

," muttered Lee Renaud, shaking his he

they generate is limited, consisting merely of that which the cushions themselves contain. We conquer this by making the cushions communicate with the ground, the great reservoir of electricity. To do this, we

f it." Lee blinked dazedly and off he went, still muttering

f the day Lee poked around in the dim and dusty attic high up under the eaves of the big house. Now and again he brought do

ied it to Uncle Gem, he had a feeling this was the right one. It was so full of strange old illustrations, it was so p

ook hold of the ancient tome that had played so

e index." Old Renaud began to read, "Astronomy, Catoptrics, Gyr

about that too, isn't there?" Lee

undershot and overshot, the waterchain, the turbine engine! It seems just yesterday that Master Lloyd, the Welshman, had us boys all down at the creek bui

uild electrica

l the way back to New York to g

ment. He had been hoping to experiment some with elect

l of water, corked, and a long nail driven through the cork to reach down into the water. When the old Pomeranian priest touched this nail head to a frictional machine, he got a "shock" that made him think the jar was full of dev

ccepted electricity as an ordinary, everyday thing. Now the real glory of it smote him, thrilled him, inspired him. He longed desperately to try out these primitive experim

understand it, step by step! A large order, indeed!

thusiasm and will power into this str

te electricity. But unless that electricity could be "stored," it had no us

gone right ahead and used such things as came

eart. Jar of fair glass, brass rod "compleated" with a knob, wooden stopper, sheets of substance tinfoil, chain of brass, thre

together an old metal door knob, an empty fruit jar, a few links of small chain,

m its bottom. The round bottom he patiently trimmed till it would just slip in through the neck of the jar. By rolling the tin sides smaller, he managed to push the whole affair down into the jar, where the released roll o

the jar was at least covered in tin in the prescribe

h a wooden stopper he had whittled to fit the mouth of the jar. He had no metal springs, but decided to make the contact with the bit of chain fastened to the

e finished product, it looked more like junk than ever. It didn't seem humanly possible that

e crystal "friction maker." After a few minutes of this, he grasped the jar in

s hand to smash into a hundred bits on the floor. The boy leaped high in the air