Tom understood at once the mechanism of this horrible thing. The bell of the alarm clock had been removed, and the clock so placed that at the fatal tick the striker would have vibrated against this rough area, which was probably inflammable like a match-end and which, on being ignited, would have ignited the fuse.
Tom's imagination traced the hurrying little flames, racing along those two cords to see which would get there first, and he shuddered, thinking of the end of that sprightly little race to the awful goal....
His lip curled a little as he looked at the now harmless piece of junk and as his eyes wandered to the impenitent clock which, without any vestige of remorse or contrition, was ticking merrily up there on the shelf, out of harm's way between the sentinels of cans.
"Huh, I don't call that fighting!" he said.
Tom's knowledge of war was confined to what he had learned at school. He knew about the Battle of Bunker Hill and that ripping old fight, the Battle of Lexington. These two encounters represented what he understood war to be.
When Mr. Ellsworth had taken him in hand, he had told him a few things known to scouts: that it was cowardly to throw stones; that it was contemptible to strike a person in the back or below the waist; that fighting was bad enough, but that if fights must be fought they should be fought in the open. That a boy should never, never strike a girl....
And what kind of fighting was this? thought Tom. Was it not exactly like the boy who sneaks behind a fence and throws stones?
"That ain't fighting," he repeated.
Methodically he went upstairs. His immediate superior was "Butch," but his ultimate superior was Mr. Cressy, the steward; and to him he now went.
"I got somethin' to tell you, Mr. Cressy," he said hurriedly. "I made a mistake and went into the wrong room, and there's a bomb there. It was set for nine o'clock. I fixed it so's it can't go off."