"I'll fight you!" squealed the outraged scientist, bounding to his feet.
"I expect it'll turn out to be a fire-extinguisher, or something like that," pursued the truculent Ashley.
"Hold the bomb," said Stinker to the President, "while I——"
"Sit down," urged the other Anarchists, drawing in their toes. "There's no room here. Ashley minor, chuck it!"
"It won't work," muttered Ashley doggedly.
Suddenly a brilliant idea came upon Stinker.
"Won't work, won't it?" he screamed. "All right, then! We'll shove it into this fire now, and you see if it doesn't work!"
Among properly constituted Anarchistic Societies it is not customary, when the efficacy of a bomb is in dispute, to employ the members as a corpus vile. But the young do not fetter themselves with red-tape of this kind. With one accord Stinker's suggestion was acclaimed, and the bomb was thrust into the glowing coals of Rumford's study fire. The brotherhood, herded together within a few feet of the grate—the apartment measured seven feet by six—breathed hard and waited expectantly.
Five minutes passed—then ten.
"It ought to be pretty ripe now," said the inventor anxiously.