“There’s where my explosive has the advantage. There isn’t but one way to explode it; and there’s too much science about it for the child, the idiot or the railroad dynamiter. He couldn’t be on hand with an electric battery; and it can’t be exploded by accident.
“Let me show you something,” said Bombs, fumbling in his pocket and bringing forth a small piece of reddish brown substance. “You see how harmless it looks; and so it is ordinarily but by employing certain agencies it could be made to blow up as large an establishment as your library building.”
She shuddered involuntarily.
“I see you have no confidence in it, Miss Adelaide,” he said tossing it up and down in his hand. “I have some larger pieces in my traveling case. I will prove them to you some day if you like.”
“No! no! Mr. Bombs. I don’t want any proof! This is no longer a fit place for proving grounds, as you will see.”
She looked out over the network of walks and added: “The children have gone home to dinner, but they will be back again soon. They come and go like the birds of heaven.”
“O Adelaide, how cruel,” exclaimed Bombs, half in jest. “If your father were here, he would receive me with open arms. He would be proud to have me show up my discoveries and inventions. He built the Queery at my instigation; but you—”
“Father told me I might do as I liked and he knew I did not like dangerous things. We were alone here for several weeks and we talked it all over and made plans,” sobbed Adelaide.
“Well, don’t cry, Adelaide. I shall not insist. I ought not to wonder that you feel as you do especially since his death and about anything of the same nature that caused it; but you will change your mind I am sure when you see that my invention is entirely the reverse of the old and everlastingly dangerous ones. I am going to have some experiments tried with it by Government authority at the Indian Head Proving Grounds later on, and I hope you will be induced to come and see for yourself that it will be a blessing rather than a curse. It is ten times more powerful when its power is needed than the horrible dynamite of which you have had such a sad experience; but it is religiously believed that the very might of it will make disastrous celebrations and even war practically impossible.”
“Religiously believed!” exclaimed Adelaide. “I should say that it was anything but religious to believe that disastrous celebrations and wars are to be done away with by monstrous life destroying agencies instead of the human and divine agencies of love and true friendliness. No! no, Mr. Bombs! That is treacherous military pretense. We have never had any Independence Day accidents here since the fireworks were abolished. We had a great many before. Ruth Cornwallis began the crusade against them and our Golden Rule President with his earnest appeals and wise prohibitions made a clean sweep of them. You remember Laurens Cornwallis’s mysterious death. You said you would tell me what you knew about it when you came back. Please tell me now, Mr. Bombs.”