"How do you know it's one?" I says, a little uneasy and wishing I had fired Anna before she got this swell chance of firing us.
"Well, it looks just like the one in the picture where them three Germans blew theirselves up in the newspaper!" says she. "And it ticks."
"My Gawd!" I says. "Where is the thing?"
"On the kitchen-table," says Ma.
"Well," I says, bravely. "I think I aught to take a look at it anyways."
"I wished you wouldn't," says she. But she came down the hall after me like the loyal mother she is, and the two of us stopped at the threshhold as the poet says.
And there, sure enough, in the middle of the spotless oilcloth on the kitchen table lay a mighty funny looking package, about the size of a dish-pan and done up in that black oil-cloth them foreigners seem so fond of. And between yells from that radical parrot, who commenced his "I love Anarchy!" the moment he set eyes on us, we could hear that evil-looking package tick as plain as day.
Well, what with a mother and a father both practically born on the centre trapese and used myself to taking chances since early childhood, I don't believe I'm more of a coward than most. But I will admit my heart commenced going too quick at that sight and the radical bird was as usual loose in the place, and didn't make my nerves any easier. But a stitch in time often saves a whole pair of silk ones, and remembering this, I took some quick action. I turned up my georgette crepe sleeves, and the front of my skirt so's not to splash it, and made straight for the sink, keeping my eye on the centre-table all the while.
"Look out!" screams Ma. "What are you going to do?"
"Throw cold water on it!" I says. And filling the dish-pan I took a long sling with it, and pretty near drowned the kitchen table, to say nothing of the scare I threw into Frits. As soon as he quit, we listened again, but my efforts had been in vain, for the thing was still ticking—slow, loud ticks, and very alarming.