"Oh, call me any old name; it does not matter!"
"Mr. Spook, shall we say?"
"Ahem! a little personal, perhaps, but it will do as well as another. Now, as I was saying, I will show you how to make the most powerful explosive that was ever invented."
It is possible that I did not show as much interest and enthusiasm as he expected, and to tell the truth I was a little nervous. Spooks do not have the same interest in being careful in their experiments—an accident or two is of little consequence to them, but might be decidedly disagreeable to me. I may have shown something of what I was thinking in my manner, for Spook looked at me keenly.
"What is the matter? You do not appear interested."
"On the contrary," I answered, "I am deeply so, but do we not run considerable
risk in trying such experiments in a laboratory without the consent of its owner?"
"Not at all, not at all. I will use a very small amount of the explosive, and there will be no damage done."
"Have you attempted to make it before, Mr. Spook?" I ventured.
"Oh, yes, last week; that was a mistake—you see now I know all about it, I didn't then; the explosion was something awful—it blew the building pretty much all to pieces. If I had been alive I don't believe you could have found a piece of me as large as your finger—they called it spontaneous combustion; however, we won't have anything of that kind to-night."