He grasped the pistol in his pocket, and aimed it through the cloth. “Do you know what time it is?” he asked J. Dupont Evans, politely enough. It was only a second before the man answered. But in that second Merriwether Buck, crazily exalted, and avid of the sensation he was about to create, had a swift vision. He saw bank after bank come crashing down; great railroad systems ruined; factories closed and markets stagnant; mines shut and crops ungathered in the fields; ships idle at the wharves; pandemonium and ruin everywhere. “Huh?” said J. Dupont Evans, gruffly, removing an unlighted cigar from his mouth. He looked at Merriwether Buck suspiciously, and made as if to move on. But he thought better of it the next instant, evidently, for he pulled out a plain silver watch and said grudgingly: “Two minutes of two.” And then, in a tone less unpleasant, he asked: “Have you got a match, young man?” Merriwether fumbled in his vest pocket. In a minute and a half he would perfunctorily ask this man for lunch, and then he would kill him. But he would give him a match first--for Merriwether Buck was a well-brought-up young man. As he fumbled he picked out the exact spot on the other's waistcoat where he would plant the bullet. But the idea of a man on the edge of the grave lighting a cigar tickled him so that he laughed aloud as he held out the matches. “What can I do with these?” snorted J. Dupont Evans. “They are the sort that light only on their own box.” From his glance one might have gained the impression that he thought Merriwether Buck a fool. “Great principle that,” said Merriwether Buck, cackling with hysteria. It was so funny that a dead man should want to smoke a cigar! He would let him play he was alive for fifty seconds longer. “Principle?” said Evans. “Principle? What Principle?” “Well,” said Merriwether, with the random argumentativeness of insanity, “it _is_ a great principle. Apply that principle to some high explosive, for instance, and you have no more battleship flare-backs--no premature mine blasts----” “Say,” the other suddenly interrupted, “are you an inventor?” “Yes,” lied Merriwether Buck, glibly, although he had never given five seconds' thought to the subject of high explosives in his life. “That's how I know. I've invented an explosive more powerful than dynamite. But it won't explode by contact with fire, like powder. Won't explode with a jar, like dynamite. Won't freeze, like dynamite. Only one way to explode it--you've got to bring it into contact with a certain other chemical the same as scratching one of these matches on its own box.” “The deuce, young man!” said the other. “There's a fortune in it! Is it on the market at all?” “No,” said Merriwether Buck, raising his pistol hand slightly and thrusting it a bit forward, under the mask of his coat pocket, “no money to start it going.”