abundance without a consideration."

"It is very rarely that philanthropy amongst us goes much further,"
remarked Fritz.

"No, everybody is not like Willis," rejoined Jack, "who acts like a
prince, and gives legs of mutton gratis to hyenas and tigers. The
discharges of electricity from one cloud to another are the flashes of
lightning, and it is to be observed that the thunder is nothing more
than the noise made by the fluid rushing through the air."

"What, then, is the thunderbolt?"

"There is no such thing as what is popularly understood by the term
thunderbolt. The lightning itself, however, often does mischief. This
happens when the discharge, instead of being between two clouds in the
air, takes place between a cloud and the ground--a cloud surcharged
with electricity understood. Then all intervening objects are struck
by the fluid."

"There, however, you are wrong," said Fritz. "All objects are not
struck; on the contrary, the fluid avoids some things and searches out
others, even moving in a zig-zag direction to manifest these caprices;
it often discharges itself on or into hard substances, and passes by
those which are soft or feeble."

"I might say this arose from a sentiment of generosity," added Jack,
"but I have other reasons to assign."

"So much the better," said Fritz, "as I should scarcely be satisfied
with the first."

"Well," continued Jack, "lightning has its likings and dislikings."

"Like men and women," suggested Willis.

"It has a partiality for metal."

"An affection that is not returned, however," observed Fritz.

"If the fluid enters a room, for example, it runs along the bell
wires, inspects the works of the clock, and sometimes has the audacity
to pounce upon the money in your purse, even though a policeman should
happen to be in the kitchen at the time."

"Perhaps," remarked Willis, "it is Socialist or Red Republican in its
notions."

"It does not, however, patronise war," replied Jack; "I once heard of
it having melted a sword and left the scabbard intact."

"That, to say the least of it, is improbable," remarked Fritz. "The
hilt, or even the point, might have been fused; but even supposing the
electric fluid to have been capable of such flagrant preference, the
scabbard could not have held molten metal without being itself
consumed."

"Aye," remarked Willis, "there are plenty of non-sensical stories of
that kind in circulation, because nobody takes the trouble to tes