another might make one distrustful
with respect to yourself."

"Hark! The thunder becomes less muttering. It is nearing us, and nearing
the earth, too. Hark! One crammed crash! All the vibrations made one by
nearness. Another flash. Hold!"

"What do you?" I said, seeing him now, instantaneously relinquishing his
staff, lean intently forward towards the window, with his right fore and
middle fingers on his left wrist. But ere the words had well escaped
me, another exclamation escaped him.

"Crash! only three pulses--less than a third of a mile off--yonder,
somewhere in that wood. I passed three stricken oaks there, ripped out
new and glittering. The oak draws lightning more than other timber,
having iron in solution in its sap. Your floor here seems oak.

"Heart-of-oak. From the peculiar time of your call upon me, I suppose
you purposely select stormy weather for your journeys. When the thunder
is roaring, you deem it an hour peculiarly favorable for producing
impressions favorable to your trade."

"Hark!--Awful!"

"For one who would arm others with fear you seem unbeseemingly timorous
yourself. Common men choose fair weather for their travels: you choose
thunder-storms; and yet--"

"That I travel in thunder-storms, I grant; but not without particular
precautions, such as only a lightning-rod man may know. Hark!
Quick--look at my specimen rod. Only one dollar a foot."

"A very fine rod, I dare say. But what are these particular precautions
of yours? Yet first let me close yonder shutters; the slanting rain is
beating through the sash. I will bar up."

"Are you mad? Know you not that yon iron bar is a swift conductor?
Desist."

"I will simply close the shutters, then, and call my boy to bring me a
wooden bar. Pray, touch the bell-pull there.

"Are you frantic? That bell-wire might blast you. Never touch bell-wire
in a thunder-storm, nor ring a bell of any sort."

"Nor those in belfries? Pray, will you tell me where and how one may be
safe in a time like this? Is there any part of my house I may touch with
hopes of my life?"

"There is; but not where you now stand. Come away from the wall. The
current will sometimes run down a wall, and--a man being a better
conductor than a wall--it would leave the wall and run into him. Swoop!
_That_ must have fallen very nigh. That must have been globular
lightning."

"Very probably. Tell me at once, which is, in your opinion, the safest
part of this house?

"This