Peter Stulpnagel.

"We'll take our chances," said the chairman.

"Pray consider," said Peter, "that workmen who have touched the wires,
and who have received shocks of only a few hundred volts, have died
instantly. The fact is well known. And yet when a much greater force was
used upon a criminal at New York, the man struggled for some little
time. Do you not clearly see that the smaller dose is the more deadly?"

"I think, gentlemen, that this discussion has been carried on quite long
enough," said the chairman, rising again. "The point, I take it, has
already been decided by the majority of the committee, and Duncan Warner
shall be electrocuted on Tuesday by the full strength of the Los Amigos
dynamos. Is it not so?"

"I agree," said Joseph M'Connor.

"I agree," said I.

"And I protest," said Peter Stulpnagel.

"Then the motion is carried, and your protest will be duly entered in
the minutes," said the chairman, and so the sitting was dissolved.

The attendance at the electrocution was a very small one. We four
members of the committee were, of course, present with the executioner,
who was to act under their orders. The others were the United States
Marshal, the governor of the gaol, the chaplain, and three members of
the press. The room was a small brick chamber, forming an out-house to
the Central Electrical station. It had been used as a laundry, and had
an oven and copper at one side, but no other furniture save a single
chair for the condemned man. A metal plate for his feet was placed in
front of it, to which ran a thick insulated wire. Above, another wire
depended from the ceiling, which could be connected with a small
metallic rod projecting from a cap which was to be placed upon his head.
When this connection was established Duncan Warner's hour was come.

There was a solemn hush as we waited for the coming of the prisoner. The
practical engineers looked a little pale, and fidgeted nervously with
the wires. Even the hardened Marshal was ill at ease, for a mere hanging
was one thing, and this blasting of flesh and blood a very different
one. As to the pressmen, their faces were whiter than the sheets which
lay before them. The only man who appeared to feel none of the influence
of these preparations was the little German crank, who strolled from one
to the other with a smile on his lips and mischief in his eyes. More
than once he even went so far as to burst into a shout of laughter,
until the chapla