Yet when my readers shall
have become men and women my story may not seem to their children like
a fairy tale at all.
Perhaps one, perhaps two--perhaps several of the Demon's devices will
be, by that time, in popular use.
Who knows?
1. Rob's Workshop
When Rob became interested in electricity his clear-headed father
considered the boy's fancy to be instructive as well as amusing; so he
heartily encouraged his son, and Rob never lacked batteries, motors or
supplies of any sort that his experiments might require.
He fitted up the little back room in the attic as his workshop, and
from thence a net-work of wires soon ran throughout the house. Not
only had every outside door its electric bell, but every window was
fitted with a burglar alarm; moreover no one could cross the threshold
of any interior room without registering the fact in Rob's workshop.
The gas was lighted by an electric fob; a chime, connected with an
erratic clock in the boy's room, woke the servants at all hours of the
night and caused the cook to give warning; a bell rang whenever the
postman dropped a letter into the box; there were bells, bells, bells
everywhere, ringing at the right time, the wrong time and all the
time.
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