etition of the emissive force does not jar
the gun, and the metal of our alloy does not show a strain although the
gauge induces a pressure of fifty thousand pounds per square inch if it
were accumulated."

"And the injection valve?"

"It works as easily by pressure on the disc, which replaces the trigger,
perfectly."

"That was your idea."

"After you put me on the track," returned the Italian, gratefully. "Oh,
I am still very ignorant in these matters."

"Not more than I, a few months ago. I had not handled a firearm until--"
he checked himself and frowned; then, tranquilly resuming, he said:
"Labor, and you will reach the goal!"

Antonino looked on silently as his instructor took the gun and inserted
the bullet, but when he was going over to the open window, with the
evident intention to fire off into the garden, he followed and laid his
hand on his arm, saying animatedly:

"Do not fire!"

"Why not?" returned Clemenceau, but without astonishment. "We live in a
desert since we have frightened our neighbors away. For two leagues
around, nobody is about at this hour and everybody within our walls is
accustomed to the noise of the gas exploding."

"Not everybody," remonstrated Antonino. "Madame Clemenceau has returned
home and the sound frightens her because so strange."

"It is so. That's another matter," replied the inventor, putting the
rifle down in the corner without haste.

"Did you know it? Have you seen her?" cried Antonino, struck by the
remarkable unconcern of his master.

"I knew of it by seeing her, yes, as I was coming down stairs a while
since--she was going to her rooms from this one, with her maid."

"It's a lucky thing that Mademoiselle Daniels refused to occupy them!"
exclaimed Antonino. "Why did you not speak to your wife?"

"Because I can have nothing to say to her and she would speak to me
nothing but lies," said Clemenceau in so severe and convinced a tone
that the young man remained silent, hurt at the judgment pronounced upon
his idol by its own high-priest. "What are you brooding over?" he
inquired, after an embarrassing pause.

"My dear master, I think that I ought to ask leave of absence since I
have finished the work of designing the bullet most fit for the
gas-rifle."

"Do you ask leave of me, at your age, as of a schoolmaster?"

The relations between the adopted son and the architect, who had
mistaken his bent and become an innovator in artillery, had been
affectionate