That day, during the purchaser’s absence, some workmen were moving a barrel of the picric acid in order to let a plumber mend a small leak in a lead pipe, which supplied the place with water. Over and about this lead pipe had been spilled a considerable quantity of picric acid, which had formed picrate of lead with the lead pipe.
The friction from the barrel set off this picrate of lead, which in turn detonated the picric acid; and the whole five tons went off with such violence as amply to demonstrate its explosive qualities.
The following day the purchaser returned to the importer with the complaint that that picric acid sold him was the most sensitive, most violent and treacherous explosive material in the world.
The importer laughed, and reminded him of their previous conversation. But, as the dynamite factory had been demolished and several men killed, the purchaser did not respond very readily to the humor of the situation.
THE TURKEY THAT WENT TO BED
Possibly it may not be diverging too much from dynamite stories to tell of an experience of mine with a steam-cooker, which I invented away back in the eighties.
In this cooker I was able to roast and bake by superheated steam. Sometimes it worked very well. At other times the safety valve gave me a great deal of trouble, being altogether too uncertain in its action.
One day I was sitting alone in the kitchen, steam-roasting a turkey, when dispossessed Bridget, who was waiting in an adjoining room, opened the kitchen door, and took a sly peep at me. I was endeavoring to convince her that the thing was perfectly safe, when, of a sudden, that cooker blew up. The kitchen windows were blown out, the door ripped off its hinges, and the stove demolished.