"If it"s one I can understand, I would," returned Jimmieboy. "But I don"t see the use of explanations that don"t explain."
"They aren"t much good," observed the Imp, touching another b.u.t.ton.
"This will make it clear, I think."
"The Dictionary doesn"t say it," said another squeaking voice, in response to the touch of the Imp on the third b.u.t.ton; "but a battery is a thing that looks like a row of jars full of preserves, but isn"t, and when properly cared for and not allowed to freeze up, it makes electricity, which is a sort of red-hot invisible fluid that p.r.i.c.ks your hands when you touch it, and makes them feel as if they were asleep if you keep hold of it for any length of time, and which carries messages over wires, makes horse-cars go without horses, lights a room better than gas, and is so like lightning that no man who has tried both can tell the difference between them."
Here the squeaking voice turned into a buzz again, and then stopped altogether.
"Now do you understand?" asked the Imp, anxiously.
"I think I do," replied Jimmieboy. "A battery is nothing but a lot of big gla.s.s jars in which "lectricity is made, just as pie is made in a tin plate and custard is made in cups."
"Exactly," said the Imp. "But, of course, electricity is a great deal more useful than pie or custard. The best custard in the world wouldn"t move a horse-car, and I don"t believe anybody ever saw a pie that could light up a room the way this is. It"s a pretty wonderful thing, electricity is, but not particularly good eating, and sometimes I don"t think it"s as good for cooking as the good old-fashioned fire. I"ve had pie that was too hot, and I"ve had pie that was too electric, and between the two I think the too-hot pie was the pleasanter, though really nothing can make pie positively unpleasant."
"So I have heard," said Jimmieboy, with an approving nod. "I haven"t had any sperience with pie, you know. That and red pepper are two things I am not allowed to eat at dinner."
"You wouldn"t like to taste some of my electric custard, would you?"
asked the Imp, his sympathies aroused by Jimmieboy"s statement that as yet he and pie were strangers.
"Indeed I would!" cried Jimmieboy, with a gleeful smile. "I"d like it more than anything else!"
"Very well," said the Imp, turning to the b.u.t.ton-board, and scratching his head as if perplexed for a moment. "Let"s see," he added. "What is custard made of?"
"Custard?" said Jimmieboy, who thought there never could be any question on that point. "It"s made of custard. I know, because I eat it all up when I get it, and there"s nothing but custard in it from beginning to end."
The Imp smiled. He knew better than that. "You are right partially," he said. "But there aren"t custard-mines or custard-trees or custard-wells in the world, so it has to be made of something. I guess I"ll ask my cookery-book."
Here he touched a pink b.u.t.ton in the left-hand upper corner of the board.
"Milk--sugar--and--egg," came the squeaking voice. "Three-quarters of a pint of milk, two table-spoonfuls of sugar, and one whole egg."
"Don"t you flavor it with anything?" asked the Imp, pressing the b.u.t.ton a second time.
"If you want to," squeaked the voice. "Vanilla, strawberry, huckleberry, sarsaparilla, or anything else, just as you want it."
Jimmieboy"s mouth watered. A strawberry custard! "Dear me!" he thought.
"Wouldn"t that be just the dish of dishes to live on all one"s days!"
"Two teaspoonfuls of whatever flavor you want will be enough for one cup of custard," said the squeaky voice, lapsing back immediately into the curious buzz.
"Thanks," said the Imp, returning to the table and putting down the receipt on a piece of paper.
"You"re welcome," said the buzz.
"Now, Jimmieboy, we"ll have two cup custards in two minutes," said the Imp. "What flavor will you have?"
"Strawberry cream, please," said Jimmieboy, as if he were ordering soda-water.
"All right. I guess I"ll take sarsaparilla," said the Imp, walking to the board again. "Now see me get the eggs."
He pressed a blue b.u.t.ton this time. The squeaky voice began to cackle, and in a second two beautiful white eggs appeared on the table. In the same manner the milk, flavoring, and sugar were obtained; only when the Imp signalled for the milk the invisible voice mooed so like a cow that Jimmieboy looked anxiously about him, half expecting to see a soft-eyed Jersey enter the room.
"Now," said the Imp, opening the eggs into a bowl, and pouring the milk and flavoring and sugar in with them, and mixing them all up together, "we"ll pour this into that funnel over there, turn on the electricity, and get our custard in a jiffy. Just watch that small hole at the end of the funnel, and you"ll see the custard come out."
"Are the cups inside? Or do we have to catch the custards in "em as they come out?" asked Jimmieboy.
"Oh, my!" cried the Imp. "I"m glad you spoke of that. I had forgotten the cups. We"ve got to put them in with the other things."
The Imp rushed to the b.u.t.ton-board, and soon had two handsome little cups in response to his summons; and then casting them into the funnel he turned on the electric current, while Jimmieboy watched carefully for the resulting custards. In two minutes by the clock they appeared below, both at the same time, one a creamy strawberry in hue, and the other brown.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ELECTRIC CUSTARD.]
"It"s wonderful!" said Jimmieboy, in breathless astonishment. "I wish I had a stove like that in my room."
"It wouldn"t be good for you. You"d be using it all day and eating what you got. But how is the custard?"
"Lovely," said Jimmieboy, smacking his lips as he ate the soft creamy sweet. "I could eat a thousand of them."
"I rather doubt it," said the Imp. "But you needn"t try to prove it. I don"t want to wear out the stove on custard when it has my dinner still to prepare. What do you say to listening to my library a little while?
I"ve got a splendid library in the next room. It has everything in it that has ever been written, and a great many things that haven"t. That"s a great thing about this electric-b.u.t.ton business. Nothing is impossible for it to do, and if you want to hear a story some man is going to tell next year or next century you can get it just as well as something that was written last year or last century. Come along."
IV
_THE LIBRARY_
The Imp opened a small door upon the right of the room, and through it Jimmieboy saw another apartment, the walls of which were lined with books, and as he entered he saw that to each book was attached a small wire, and that at the end of the library was a square piece of snow-white canvas stretched across a small wooden frame.
"Magic lantern?" he queried, as his eye rested upon the canvas.
"Kind of that way," said the Imp, "though not exactly. You see, these books in this room are worked by electricity, like everything else here.
You never have to take the books off the shelf. All you have to do is to fasten the wire connected with the book you want to read with the battery, turn on the current, and the book reads itself to you aloud.
Then if there are pictures in it, as you come to them they are thrown by means of an electric light upon that canvas."
"Well, if this isn"t the most--" began Jimmieboy, but he was soon stopped, for some book or other off in the corner had begun to read itself aloud.
"And it happened," said the book, "that upon that very night the Princess Tollywillikens pa.s.sed through the wood alone, and on approaching the enchanted tree threw herself down upon the soft gra.s.s beside it and wept."
Here the book ceased speaking.
"That"s the story of Pixyweevil and Princess Tollywillikens," said the Imp. "You remember it, don"t you?--how the wicked fairy ran away with Pixyweevil, when he and the Princess were playing in the King"s gardens, and how she had mourned for him many years, never knowing what had become of him? How the fairy had taken Pixyweevil and turned him into an oak sapling, which grew as the years pa.s.sed by to be the most beautiful tree in the forest?"
"Oh, yes," said Jimmieboy. "I know. And there was a good fairy who couldn"t tell Princess Tollywillikens where the tree was, or anything at all about Pixyweevil, but did remark to the brook that if the Princess should ever water the roots of that tree with her tears, the spell would be broken, and Pixyweevil restored to her--handsomer than ever, and as brave as a lion."
"That"s it," said the Imp. "You"ve got it; and how the brook said to the Princess, "Follow me, and we"ll find Pixyweevil," and how she followed and followed until she was tired to death, and--"