When he was shown up into his room at night and left alone with his thoughts, a placard upon the wall above the gas-burner attracted his attention. It read: "Don't blow out the gas," and under this injunction was the statement that gas burned after ten o'clock would be charged extra. Giovanni was indignant. Here he was at last caught between the horns of a dilemma. This, to his mind, was downright thievery. He would cut the Gordian knot. He would disobey the injunction. He would not pay for gas burned overtime perforce; and he blew it out.... * * * * * An old sea-captain who had for forty years traveled on every sea, who had weathered a thousand gales, and survived a hundred shipwrecks, on his return from his final voyage, in making his landing on his home shore, slipped from the dock into the water and under the skiff, and was drowned. Such is the irony of chance! SIR FREDERICK'S BONFIRE Sir Frederick Abel, who was the originator of the modern process of making high-grade guncotton and of compressing it into dense cakes for use, told me the following story: At one time, Sir Frederick had about five tons of dry guncotton, which was not of sufficient purity to stand the Government tests. He had, on previous occasions, frequently demonstrated how compressed guncotton, though dry, would quietly burn away without exploding when ignited, so he now fancied that his five tons would make a capital bonfire. With this idea of entertainment in possession of him, he invited a party of friends to witness the unique conflagration. The friends were dominated more by the spirit of aloofness than was Sir Frederick himself, and they kept at a respectful distance, while Sir Frederick advanced toward the pile of explosive, and threw a lighted torch upon it. Then he retreated a short distance to avoid the intense heat, for he expected to see the whole pile burn away. It started by merely burning; but, as I have already said about dynamite, it is notional stuff. So, on this occasion, the guncotton took a notion to explode after it got fairly on fire, which did not take very long. The whole mass detonated with terrific violence, and, even before Sir Frederick had retreated as far as he expected to go, he was knocked senseless by the concussion, and nearly every shred of clothing was blown from his body.... Although considerably bruised and lacerated, he recovered after several months. He had learned a useful lesson: that a small quantity of compressed dry guncotton can be very well depended upon to burn quietly away without detonating, but, when a large mass of it is ignited, the greater heat of combustion and the greater pressure generated in expelling the larger quantity of the products of combustion, is almost sure to produce detonation. The fact that a small quantity of an explosive material will burn away quietly without exploding has often led persons to think that a large quantity would burn in the same manner.