"Do you know what that is?" he asked, smiling at David. David shook his head. "Is it a little hose?" "No, it's wire, and the wire is covered with that black rubbery stuff. See, here are the ends." He found the ends of the wire and showed them to David. There were two bright ends of copper wire, and they peeped out of the black rubber covering. "There are two of them, you see, and they are twisted together." David nodded, but he didn't say anything. The other men were buckling on to their legs some iron spurs, or climbers, just like those the tree men had. And when they had their climbers buckled on, they took a little coil of rope and some queer little wooden things and a big hammer, and they went to the nearest pole. One of the men walked right up this pole, and when he got nearly to the top, he put a big strap around his waist and around the pole, and buckled it, so that it held him to the pole, not tight up against it, but loosely so that he could use his hands. Then he took one of the wooden things that was sticking out of his pocket, and he took his hammer from his belt, and he nailed the wooden thing to the pole. And the coil of rope was hanging at his belt; and he took it off, and he undid it, and let one end drop down to the ground. The man who was standing there tied on a big lump of glass, and the man on the pole pulled it up, and untied it, and screwed it on the top of the wooden pin that he had just nailed on. Then he dropped his rope and came down the pole. And he walked along until he came to the pole in front of David's house, and he walked right up that pole. [Illustration: HE WALKED RIGHT UP THAT POLE] Then he let down one end of his rope, and the man on the ground tied it to the end of the twisted wires, and the man on the pole pulled them up, and the spool turned over and the wires unwound as the ends went up the pole. David couldn't see what the man on the pole did with the ends of the wires, but he fastened them somehow to the wires that were there already, and then he came down. And the man on the ground put a short stick through the hole in the middle of the spool, and he took hold of one end of the stick and the man who had just come down from the pole took hold of the other end, and they walked along, and the hanging wire began to get tight, and the spool began to turn around as they walked, and the wire lay on the ground behind them. And they walked past the two new poles and to the corner of the new house; and they put the spool down on the ground. Almost all the wire had unwound from the spool. The other man had been doing what had to be done at the second pole: nailing on the wooden thing and putting the glass on. Then he had taken a ladder to the corner of the house, and he had fastened some things for the wire to go through, up the corner of the house to the eaves. Then he came down the ladder, and all the men walked back together. The first man walked up his pole again and waited.