He added this apologetically, much as some gentlemen are wont to plead "the salmon."
Apparently believing the explanation sufficient, he shut his eyes again, and seemed inclined to go to sleep.
"The Tea?" questioned Tamsin, chafing his hands.
"Or the Honey, perhaps—or the Putty," he answered drowsily. Then, opening his eyes and sitting up with a start, "Upon my soul, I don't know which. It called itself Tea, but I'm—bound—to— admit—"
He was nodding again. Utterly perplexed, Tamsin leant back and regarded him.
"Can you walk, if you lean on my arm?"
"Walk? Oh! yes, I can walk. Why not?"
But it seemed that he was mistaken; for, in attempting to start, he groped about for a bit and then sat down suddenly. Tamsin helped him to his feet.
The reader has long ago guessed the cause of the catastrophe. It was dynamite—conspirators' dynamite, and therefore ill-prepared. Now dynamite, when it explodes, acts, we are told, with "local partiality"; and of this term we may remark—
That it is given as an explanation by men of science,
Without being a "scientific" explanation;
But is, in fact, a "metaphysical" explanation,
And therefore no explanation at all of
The astonishing fact that dynamite hits one thing and does not hit another.