"But it would explode with considerable force."
"Well, I guess it would rip things jest a trifle." Here the pantaloon forced the ghost of a smile himself.
"Kindly bring in the safe."
It came in on the shoulders of two stout porters, all breached and battered and bubbled in places, as if the iron had melted like tar.
"The explosion of this shell, the construction of which you have just described, would blast away a very considerable obstacle, you say?"
"Lord, yes! Slit a cannon."
"Would it be sufficient—I ask your opinion as one having experience in this line—would it be sufficient to cause the mutilation visible in that safe?"
"All that and a sight more."
"And the accused gave you to understand that he had undertaken the construction of just such a bomb?"
"I took him so."