phase of the subject before acting again.
This is a lesson."

As he went on with his preparations it astonished him to find how many
various things had to be thought of in connexion with an apparently
simple scheme, the neglect of any one of which would endanger the whole
enterprise. His plan was a most uncomplicated one. All he had to do was
to tie a canister of dynamite at the end of a string of suitable
length, and at night, before the cafe doors were closed, fling it from
his window so that the package would sweep in by the open door, strike
against the ceiling of the cafe, and explode. First he thought of
holding the end of the cord in his hand at the open window, but
reflection showed him that if, in the natural excitement of the moment,
he drew back or leant too far forward the package might strike the
front of the house above the door, or perhaps hit the pavement. He
therefore drove a stout nail in the window-sill and attached the end of
the cord to that. Again, he had to render his canister of explosive so
sensitive to any shock that he realised if he tied the cord around it
and flung it out into the night the can might go off when the string
was jerked tight and the explosion take place in mid-air above the
street. So he arranged a spiral spring between can and cord to take up
harmlessly the shock caused by the momentum of the package when the
string became suddenly taut. He saw that the weak part of his project
was the fact that everything would depend on his own nerve and accuracy
of aim at the critical moment, and that a slight miscalculation to the
right or to the left would cause the bomb, when falling down and in, to
miss the door altogether. He would have but one chance, and there was
no opportunity of practising. However, Dupre, who was a philosophical
man, said to himself that if people allowed small technical
difficulties to trouble them too much, nothing really worth doing would
be accomplished in this world. He felt sure he was going to make some
little mistake that would ruin all his plans, but he resolved to do
the best he could and accept the consequences with all the composure at
his command.

As he stood by the window on the fatal night with the canister in his
hand he tried to recollect if there was anything left undone or any
tracks remaining uncovered. There was no light in his room, but a fire
burned in the grate, throwing flickering reflections on the opposite
wall.

"There are four