“But the treacherous war, with its horrid weapons! You must have seen how awful it was, Mr. Bombs?”
“It was the same old story, Miss Adelaide; men were made to kill each other with fists or dynamite—no matter which.”
“You are caustic as ever, Mr. Bombs. You must have spent your time chiefly with chemicals and in lurid laboratories—looking inward instead of outward—trying to find out and master the hidden forces. Father told me of your investigations only the day before he died,” said Adelaide closing her eyes and leaning back in her chair.
There was silence for a few moments, then she added: “Please tell me what you have discovered, Mr. Bombs.”
“There isn’t much to be told at present date, Miss Adelaide, except that I have discovered or think I have, the long sought for and greatly to be desired explosive—the ideal force which combines the highest known power with perfect safety in use; an explosive which when put upon the market and used in the place of dynamite will make such accidents as that which cost your father his life, practically impossible.”
“I don’t believe such awful things can be made safe, any more than the arch-fiend himself, Mr. Bombs.”
“But they can be, Miss Adelaide, if properly harnessed and handled—at least my explosive can be. It will not explode unless rightly treated or en-treated. It is very particular about that,” laughed Bombs. “It won’t respond to hard knocks or kicks or a shower of bullets, and a child might treat it to a lighted match and coals of fire and it would do no more than burn with a gentle blue flame. An ounce of it would make a safe and satisfactory firecracker in a boy’s hands; while the same quantity in skilful hands, could be made to blow up an immense battleship!”
“How horrible!” exclaimed Adelaide. “What need have we for such powerful explosives? Are we commanded to wreck the world—or grind it into powder? I heard a few days ago of a man who had invented a machine that would crunch up great rocks in its horrible jaws in less time than it takes a dog to eat a bone. At that rate there wouldn’t be a rock left in a few years’ time and the blessed earth would be little else than a succession of pitfalls!”
“Pretty good,” laughed Bombs. “It’s time for the inventor of safety appliances to come to the rescue, eh! Miss Adelaide.”
“We cry safety! and yet there is no safety with such monsters all around us. If we were all good and wise—full grown savants, we might talk of safety—but there are the children who don’t know how to use safety appliances and the criminal who is using dynamite to terrorize the railroads.”