ely expressed
surprise and gratification. "I am to understand," he continued, "that,
under this alias, you follow the profession of a dynamiter?"[3]

The plotter had resumed his seat and now replenished the glasses.

"I do," he said. "In this dark period of time, a star--the star of
dynamite--has risen for the oppressed; and among those who practise its
use, so thick beset with dangers and attended by such incredible
difficulties and disappointments, few have been more assiduous, and not
many--" He paused, and a shade of embarrassment appeared upon his
face--"not many have been more successful than myself."

"I can imagine," observed Somerset, "that, from the sweeping
consequences looked for, the career is not devoid of interest. You have,
besides, some of the entertainment of the game of hide-and-seek. But it
would still seem to me--I speak as a layman--that nothing could be
simpler or safer than to deposit an infernal machine and retire to an
adjacent county to await the painful consequences."

"You speak, indeed," returned the plotter, with some evidence of warmth,
"you speak, indeed, most ignorantly. Do you make nothing, then, of such
a peril as we share this moment? Do you think it nothing to occupy a
house like this one, mined, menaced, and, in a word, literally tottering
to its fall?"

"Good God!" ejaculated Somerset.

"And when you speak of ease," pursued Zero, "in this age of scientific
studies, you fill me with surprise. Are you not aware that chemicals are
proverbially fickle as woman, and clockwork as capricious as the very
devil? Do you see upon my brow these furrows of anxiety? do you observe
the silver threads that mingle with my hair? Clockwork, clockwork has
stamped them on my brow--chemicals have sprinkled them upon my locks!
No, Mr. Somerset," he resumed, after a moment's pause, his voice still
quivering with sensibility, "you must not suppose the dynamiter's life
to be all gold. On the contrary: you cannot picture to yourself the
bloodshot vigils and the staggering disappointments of a life like mine.
I have toiled (let us say) for months, up early and down late; my bag is
ready, my clock set; a daring agent has hurried with white face to
deposit the instrument of ruin; we await the fall of England, the
massacre of thousands, the yell of fear and execration; and lo! a snap
like that of a child's pistol, an offensive smell, and the entire loss
of so much time and plant! If," he concluded musingl