“The charge is the most peculiar part of it, sir.”
“Ya-as?”
“Very peculiar. In fact, you would hardly believe it.”
Clif, who was the speaker, leaned confidentially toward his companion, and added, in an impressive whisper:
“We use green Holland cheese, sir.”
“What! Bah Jove, you cawn’t use cheese to fire a gun, don’t you know?”
“Fact, sir. I’m not supposed to give the secret away, but I know you won’t repeat it. The American Government is very progressive, sir. And the American naval officer is great on inventions. It was a cadet that invented the ‘cheesite,’ as the new explosive is called. He made the discovery in a very queer way.”
Clif paused a second for breath, then he continued in the same impressive tone:
“He was a shipmate of mine at the academy, sir. His name was Mudd. Funny name, eh? Well, Mudd was very fond of Dutch cheese. Ate it all the time. One day he brought a pound or two into our room—I bunked with him, you know—and hid it in the stove. There happened to be a little fire in it, and bless me if the cheese and heat didn’t generate gas and blow the room into the middle of the Severn River. I was nearly drowned trying to swim ashore.”
“Haw! Most extraordinary. Must make a note of it.”