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accurately reported. Poor young man! " And Tom drew his
handkerchief across his eyes and walked towards the door, while a
groan of sympathy rose from the crowd outside.
He had his hand upon the handle when a thought seemed to
strike him, and he turned back. "There is yet a possible hope, " he
said, "we have not tried the magical effects of electricity— that subtle
power, next of kin to nervous force. Is there a chemist's near? "
"Yes, doctor, there's Mr. McLagan just round the corner. "
"Then run! A human life trembles in the balance — get his
strongest battery, quick! " And away went half the crowd racing
down the street and tumbling over each other in the effort to be first
at Mr. McLagan's. They came back very red and hot, and one of them
bore a shining, brown mahogany box in his arms which contained the
instrument in question.
"Now, gentlemen, " said Tom, "I believe I may say that I am
the first practitioner in Great Britain who has applied electricity to
this use. In my student days I have seen the learned Rokitansky of
Vienna employ it in some such way. I apply the negative pole over
the solar plexus, while the positive I place on the inner side of the
patella. I have seen it produce surprising effect; it may again in this
case. "
It certainly did. Whether it was an accident or whether Tom's
innate reckless devilry got the better of him I cannot say. He himself
always swore that it was an accident, but at any rate he sent the
strongest current of a most powerful battery rattling and crashing
through my system. I gave one ear-splitting yell and landed with a
single bound into the middle of the room. I was charged with
electricity like a Leyden jar. My very hair bristled with it.
"You confounded idiot! " I shouted, shaking my fist in Tom's
face. "Isn't it enough to dislocate every bone in my body with your
ridiculous resuscitations without ruining my constitution with this
thing? " and I gave a vicious kick at the mahogany box. Never was
there such a stampede! The inspector of police and the correspondent
of the Chronicle sprang down the staircase, followed by the twelve
respectable citizens. The landlady crawled under the bed. A lodger
who was nursing her baby while she conversed with a neighbour in
the street below let the child drop upon her friend's head. In fact Tom
might have founded the nucleus of a practice there and then. As it
was, his presence of mind carried him through. "A miracle! " he