"Do you think he would be quite sympathetic? " asked Lady Brenda, entering into the discussion as though the invitation were a reality.
"Oh yes! " exclaimed Gwendoline. "He was a great dandy, and immensely refined. Besides, Augustus would not be happy unless he were asked. Julius Caesar is his ideal."
"Won't you have anybody besides Chopin, Gwendoline ? " asked Augustus. " You might have George Sand, for instance."
"Oh no!" protested Gwendoline. "They would sit in corners and talk to each other all the evening."
" Why is not it possible!" exclaimed Diana regretfully.
"Perhaps it is," answered Augustus, quietly.
"Augustus, I think you are quite mad!" cried Lady Brenda, laughing.
"My dear mother-in-law, you are probably right. It is quite certain that I am mad, if you are sane, but if I am sane you are undoubtedly mad. Happily it is often people of very opposite dispositions who best agree. In either case, mad or sane, you are the most: charming woman I know and I hope you will not change at all."
Lady Brenda blushed faintly, as she always did when anybody made her a compliment, and she kissed the tips of her fingers and waved them towards Augustus across the tea-table with a pretty gesture.
"Oh, Augustus! How can you say mamma is more charming than I am?" said Gwendoline with a laugh.
"Or than I am?" echoed Diana, between two bites of a huge strawberry.
"With such women as you, my dears," answered Augustus, imperturbably, "the most charming woman is always the one who is speaking at the moment."
"We might all speak at once," suggested Lady Brenda, "then we should all be equally charming."
"No man could stand that," answered Augustus.
"You would take refuge in the fourth dimension, then,.! suppose?" asked Diana.
"Like the bishop who said he travelled in the third class because there was no fourth! " suggested Gwendoline. "Let us return to the question of the dinner party. Shall I write invitations to the people we mentioned? Could we not perform an incantation and burn the notes upon the sacrificial altar?"
"We could," said Augustus. "It would be a comparatively cheap form of amusement. But in the course of time, if Julius Caesar and the rest never came, the novelty of asking them would wear off."
"If they only knew what agreeable people we are, I am sure they would come," answered Gwendoline.
"Twill see about it," said Augustus. "It will soon be time to dress for dinner."
CHAPTER II.
Augustus Chard believed that science had reached a point at which it was necessary to try entirely new experiments and to try them on a vast scale. It seemed to him that the problem of greatest present importance was of a practical kind — the production of electricity in a serviceable form and at a cost which should at once make it the universal source of heat, light and motive power for the whole world. After a careful examination he had come to the conclusion that the most convenient form in which the fluid could be produced was the voltaic, which also was unfortunately the most expensive. He accordingly set to work to ascertain whether any method existed, and could be guessed at, whereby the earth herself could be made to produce under the existing circumstances of nature a current of voltaic electricity. He argued that if such a current could be produced, and if the quality should prove satisfactory, the quantity as compared with the needs of mankind must be unlimited.
Acting upon his usual plan of beginning from first principles, he reflected*that in the earliest experiments voltaic currents were produced by immersing two metals in a fluid. He naturally discarded all the chemical theories of electricity as worthless, basing his reasoning entirely upon fact and not fearing to give trial to any system which suggested itself, regardless of all existing prejudices about probability. Grotthuss's hypothesis had no charms for him. The problem was, not how to explain the chemical action of currents, but how to produce currents on an enormous scale at a trifling cost. It was necessary to consult nature and not books. If he succeeded in producing a vast quantity of electricity he would find leisure to discourse upon its chemical effects. The idea that the earth must be considered to be a gigantic reservoir of electricity presented itself to his mind under a practical aspect; and it immediately struck him that in the shape of land and water the earth contained the two elements of a stupendous battery; acted upon at all points by a uniform fluid agent, the atmosphere. The idea was simple and grand. It would be sufficient to immerse one conductor in the sea and to attach another to the land. If anything were to result from the attempt it must result immediately. No one had ever thought of it before and the credit of the discovery would belong wholly to him, Augustus Chard. If it failed there was no one but Lady Brenda to say "I told you so." Augustus accordingly set to work to convert the earth into a battery, beginning with a preliminary experiment, to the success of which he attached considerable importance and for which he had caused special instruments to be constructed. Even if this previous attempt should fail Augustus would not be discouraged. A great mathematician has said that " a law would be theoretically universal if it were true of all cases whatever'; and that is what we do not know of any law at all." All previous experiments on such a scale might fail and yet the final experiment, which nobody had ever tried, might be brilliantly successful.
Augustus therefore proceeded to construct an artificial world. This is a very simple operation, and it is unfortunate that the construction of the real article should be accompanied with such difficulty. It would be well worth while for the European Powers to construct two little supplementary worlds, one for Russians to live in and one for Turks. It has indeed been found theoretically possible to make much out of nothing at all, but hitherto all efforts to materialise the cosmic ether into human habitations and other practical conveniences have signally failed. Augustus made his world in a glass bowl with earth and pebbles and salt water, and tested its nature with a tangent compass of his own invention, very delicately constructed. His expectations were raised to the highest pitch and he hesitated to make the connection of the wire in the mercury cup. At that moment Lady Brenda entered the room, dressed in an exquisite spring costume, with a little straw hat upon her head and a wonderful parasol in her hand.
"Come and look at my ghost," said Augustus, smiling.
"It does not look at all like my idea of a ghost," answered Lady Brenda.
"Neither is your idea of a ghost at all like mine," returned her son-in-law. "Look here, I am going to consult a kind of Egyptian oracle which I have reconstructed from original manuscripts rescued by Dr. Mumienschinder from a tomb in Thebes. The peculiarity of this oracle is that it tells the truth sometimes. It is a sort of teraphim — "
"Oh, I know. They eat teraphims in America. Brenda dotes on them."
"I said teraphim — you mean terrapin," said Augustus, gravely.
"I see," said Lady Brenda, "of course. Go on."
"Now I am going to perform a magic rite. I will put this bit of copper wire into this little cup of mercury. Do you see that needle? If the needle moves I shall be a great man — if it does not — well then we will see."
"Put it in. I am sure it won't move," said Lady Brenda, confidently.
"Here goes. One, two, three! "
Augustus and his mother-in-law fixed their eyes on the little needle. It trembled and moved, very little indeed, but visibly.
"Hurrah! " cried Chard. " I shall be a great man! I told you so! "
"How can you be so silly, Augustus!" laughed Lady Brenda. " Of course it moved — you shook it with the wire. Don't tell me you really put any faith in that nonsense! "
"I put a good deal of faith