"Shan't!" returned the other, snappishly. "I've finished."
Shepherd was now called upon to open on the side of the negative.
"War," he began, assuming his accustomed attitude, and beaming round on his listeners with a very good imitation of the Powler smile—"war is like surgery. When drugs are of no avail, we are often forced to resort to the use of the knife, and so—"
Another mimic bomb exploded in the very centre of the speaker's waistcoat, causing him to jump nearly out of his skin. Redbrook sprang to his feet in a towering rage, and as he did so another projectile burst on the open pages of the minute book.
"Who threw those things? I will find out!"
A babel of voices rose in reply. No one had done it. The door was shut, the windows were fastened, a hasty search was made in the cupboards and under the back desks, in the hope of discovering a lurking enemy; but even while the search was in progress another missile went off under the secretary's chair.
"Who is it?" shouted Redbrook. "Where do they come from?"
"That seemed to fall from the ceiling," answered Heningson; "yes—look there!"
Above the hanging gas-jet in the centre of the room was an ornamental iron grating, between the apertures of which there now appeared about an inch and a half of brass tube, like the end of a big peashooter. A moment later there was a prodigious puff, and four "throw-downs" exploded with a simultaneous crash in the centre of the chairman's table.
"There's some one up on the roof!" cried several voices.—"Stop it, you villain!"