Frictional Electricity: From "the Saturday Evening Post.

A comically earnest plumber named Mordecai Barnes lies in a hospital bed, recounting his spectacularly ill-fated quest for romance. Infatuated with the lovely Bella Dougherty, Mordecai finds himself rivaled by the equally enamored William Jones. In a misguided attempt to impress Bella with the marvels of science, he stages a demonstration of frictional electricity, believed by many in that era to possess genuine healing properties, only to accidentally hypnotize his rival and plunge headfirst into a series of catastrophic misunderstandings. His Aunt Maggie watches with weary disapproval as the situation spirals magnificently out of control. What follows is a cascade of absurd confrontations, confused identities, and one very confused plumber, all leading to unexpected revelations about relationships and blood ties that neither Mordecai nor the reader anticipated. Clark writes with the breezy, theatrical humor characteristic of Saturday Evening Post fiction from the era, trading in broad physical comedy, exaggerated characters, and the kind of romantic entanglement that resolves only after everyone has been thoroughly humiliated. It's a time capsule of Victorian-era American humor, silly, over-the-top, and oddly endearing.