Dozen eggs.
Yards fishing-line.
Needles—anything to sew a button on.
A B C bass hooks.
Meat—anything so it isn't fish.
Ink for fountain pen.
Tins sardines.
Extractor.
Well, I could not make anything of it; but, of course, I have not Tish's mind. Aggie was almost as bad.
"What's an extractor?" she asked.
"Exactly!" said Tish. "What is an extractor? Is the fellow going to pull teeth? No! He needed an e; so he made up a word."
She ran her finger down the first letters of the second column. "D-y-n-a-m-i-t-e!" she said triumphantly. "Didn't I tell you?"
IV
Well, there it was—staring at us. I felt positively chilled. He looked so young and agreeable, and, as Aggie said, he had such nice teeth. And to know him for what he was—it was tragic! But that was not all.
"Add the numbers!" said Tish. "Thirty-one tons, perhaps, of dynamite! And that's only part," said Tish. "Here's the most damning thing of all—a note to his accomplice!"
"Damning" is here used in the sense of condemnatory. We are none of us addicted to profanity.
We read the other paper, which had been in a sealed envelope, but without superscription. It is before me as I write, and I am copying it exactly:—