slender brown worm, issuing from the
armhole of his waistcoat and plunging into the inner breast pocket of his
jacket. His clothes, of a nondescript brown mixture, were threadbare and
marked with stains, dusty in the folds, with ragged button-holes. "The
detonator is partly mechanical, partly chemical," he explained, with
casual condescension.

"It is instantaneous, of course?" murmured Ossipon, with a slight
shudder.

"Far from it," confessed the other, with a reluctance which seemed to
twist his mouth dolorously. "A full twenty seconds must elapse from the
moment I press the ball till the explosion takes place."

"Phew!" whistled Ossipon, completely appalled. "Twenty seconds!
Horrors! You mean to say that you could face that? I should go crazy--"

"Wouldn't matter if you did. Of course, it's the weak point of this
special system, which is only for my own use. The worst is that the
manner of exploding is always the weak point with us. I am trying to
invent a detonator that would adjust itself to all conditions of action,
and even to unexpected changes of conditions. A variable and yet
perfectly precise mechanism. A really intelligent detonator."

"Twenty seconds," muttered Ossipon again. "Ough! And then--"

With a slight turn of the head the glitter of the spectacles seemed to
gauge the size of the beer saloon in the basement of the renowned Silenus
Restaurant.

"Nobody in this room could hope to escape," was the verdict of that
survey. "Nor yet this couple going up the stairs now."

The piano at the foot of the staircase clanged through a mazurka with
brazen impetuosity, as though a vulgar and impudent ghost were showing
off. The keys sank and rose mysteriously. Then all became still. For a
moment Ossipon imagined the overlighted place changed into a dreadful
black hole belching horrible fumes choked with ghastly rubbish of smashed
brickwork and mutilated corpses. He had such a distinct perception of
ruin and death that he shuddered again. The other observed, with an air
of calm sufficiency:

"In the last instance it is character alone that makes for one's safety.
There are very few people in the world whose character is as well
established as mine."

"I wonder how you managed it," growled Ossipon.

"Force of personality," said the other, without raising his voice; and
coming from the mouth of that obviously miserable organism the assertion
caused the robust Ossipon to bite his lower li