“The very same thing,” replied his uncle. “Thunder, beads of fire from the cat, sparks from paper—all are due to electricity. But let us return to de Romas. We see that there is electricity, the thunderbolt in miniature, in the kite’s string. It is inoffensive yet, on account of its feeble quantity; so de Romas does not hesitate to draw it forth with his finger. Every time he brings his finger near the cylinder, he draws a spark like that received by the exciter. Emboldened by his example, the spectators draw near and evoke the electric explosion. They crowd around the wonderful cylinder that now contains the fire from heaven, called down by man’s genius; each one wishes to call forth the lightning, and each wishes to see sparkle between his fingers the fulminant substance descended from the clouds. So they play with the thunder for half an hour with impunity, when all at once a violent spark reaches de Romas and almost knocks him over. The hour of peril has come. The storm is getting nearer, stronger, every moment; thick clouds hover over the kite. “De Romas summons up all his firmness; he quickly makes the crowd draw back and remains alone at the side of his apparatus, in the middle of the circle of spectators, who are beginning to get frightened. Then, with the aid of the exciter, he elicits from the metallic cylinder first strong sparks, capable of throwing a person down under the violence of the commotion, then ribbons of fire that dart in serpentine lines and burst with a crash. These ribbons soon measure a length of two or three meters. Any one struck by one of them would certainly perish. De Romas, fearing from moment to moment some fatal accident, enlarges the circle of curious spectators and ceases the perilous provocation of electric fire. But, braving imminent death, he continues his perilous observations at close range, with the same coolness as if he were engaged in the most harmless experiment. Around him there is heard a roaring like the continuous blast of a forge; an odor of burning is in the air; the kite-string is covered with a luminous envelope and forms a ribbon of fire joining heaven to earth. Three long straws, lying by chance on the ground, start up, jump, spring toward the string, fall, spring up again, and for some minutes entertain the spectators with their disordered evolutions.” “Last evening,” Claire remarked, “the down of the feathers and the little pieces of paper jumped in the same way between the electrified sheet of paper and the table.” “That is quite natural,” said Jules, “since Uncle has just told us that the rubbed sheet of paper takes to itself the very essence of thunder, only in a very small quantity.”