“Oh, boys,” he wailed, “I have some of them—a lot of them—in my pocket! Oh, boys, they will explode there! They will explode and tear us all to pieces!” And here his voice increased in volume, and rose higher and higher, faster than even the scale of C. “Help me, some one, for I can’t get ’em out!—Oh! I explode!”
“Console yourself, Jim,” Henry laughed; “I’ll help you to disgorge them.”
“Have you any about you?” Jim quavered.
“No,” said Henry; and with that he took the explosive little tubes out of Timor’s pocket.
“Boys, Mr. Lawrence, I know now what these horrible, cartridge-like tubes are,” George here observed. “They are dynamite—a new explosive, very useful to fire other explosives, I believe. I have read about them lately, but I never saw one before, and don’t know much about their properties, except that—”
“George,” Steve interrupted, “if you had told us all this ten minutes ago, you would have spared us much annoyance and suffering. Excuse me, George, but this has roiled my emotions more than anything that ever happened. Yes, you have knowledge of sundry curious and useful facts, I admit; but that knowledge is not turned to account till the mischief is done. Some day, when you see me all torn to pieces, you will discover that what I took for a pretty music-box was an infernal machine; and then you will chuckle over your profundity, but I shall not hear you.”
“Well, they had no business to leave dynamites scattered about so loosely,” Charles said, his eyes tingling just enough to make him surly.
“Had we any business to meddle with them?” George growled.
“Oh,” sighed Will, now revived, “I’m afraid I made an egregious fool of myself; and I was probably the least hurt of all. Some pieces entered my ears, cheek, and neck;—an ordinary hurt for a little boy;—but through my foolishness I have disjointed my knee!”
Marmaduke now joined them. He had taken the affair most unconcernedly, and strolled off to make a reconnaissance.