"
"What a variety of ways there are of getting out of the world!" said
Willis lugubriously.
"Again," continued Jack, "anything that happens to be in the vicinity
of the clouds when this interchange of courtesies is going on, is apt
to draw the storm upon itself, hence the continual war that is carried
on between the lightning and the steeples."
"Something like an individual coming within range of a cloud of
mosquitoes," suggested Willis.
"A learned German--one of us," said the scapegrace, laughing,
"calculated, in 1783, that in the space of thirty-three years there
had been, to his own knowledge, three hundred and eighty-six spires
struck, and a hundred and twenty bell-ringers killed by lightning,
without reckoning a much larger number wounded."
"And yet," remarked Willis, "I never heard of an insurance against
accidents by lightning."
"There are plenty of them, however, in Roman Catholic countries," said
Fritz. "Every village has one, and the charge is almost nominal."
"How, then, do these companies make it pay?"
"They find it answer somehow, and they never collapse."
"Then everybody ought to insure."
"Yes, but there are some obstinate people who do not see the good of
it."
"If my life had not already been forfeited, I should insure it. But
how is it done?"
"Well, you have only to go into a church, fall down on your knees
before the priest, he will make you invulnerable by a sign of the
cross; then, come storms that pulverize the body or crush the mind,
you are perfectly safe.
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