He tore open his collar and opened vest and shirt. He plunged into his interior and for an instant it seemed he was plucking forth his liver. Then as he struggled with buttons on his shoulder they perceived this flattened horror was in fact a terribly dirty flannel chest-protector. In an other moment Bert, in a state of irregular decolletage, was standing over the table displaying a sheaf of papers.
“These!” he gasped. “These are the plans!... You know! Mr. Butteridge—his machine! What died! I was the chap that went off in that balloon!”
For some seconds every one was silent. They stared from these papers to Bert's white face and blazing eyes, and back to the papers on the table. Nobody moved. Then the man with the flat voice spoke.
“Irony!” he said, with a note of satisfaction. “Real rightdown Irony! When it's too late to think of making 'em any more!”
4
They would all no doubt have been eager to hear Bert's story over again, but it was it this point that Laurier showed his quality. “No, SIR,” he said, and slid from off his table.
He impounded the dispersing Butteridge plans with one comprehensive sweep of his arm, rescuing them even from the expository finger-marks of the man with the flat voice, and handed them to Bert. “Put those back,” he said, “where you had 'em. We have a journey before us.”
Bert took them.
“Whar?” said the man in the straw hat.
“Why, sir, we are going to find the President of these States and give these plans over to him. I decline to believe, sir, we are too late.”