"Well, don't cry, Adelaide. I shall not insist. I ought not to wonder that you feel as you do especially since his death and about anything of the same nature that caused it; but you will change your mind I am sure when you see that my invention is entirely the reverse of the old and everlastingly dangerous ones. I am going to have some experiments tried with it by Government authority at the Indian Head Proving Grounds later on, and I hope you will be induced to come and see for yourself that it will be a blessing rather than a curse. It is ten times more powerful when its power is needed than the horrible dynamite of which you have had such a sad experience; but it is religiously believed that the very might of it will make disastrous celebrations and even war practically impossible." "Religiously believed!" exclaimed Adelaide. "I should say that it was anything but religious to believe that disastrous celebrations and wars are to be done away with by monstrous life destroying agencies instead of the human and divine agencies of love and true friendliness. No! no, Mr. Bombs! That is treacherous military pretense. We have never had any Independence Day accidents here since the fireworks were abolished. We had a great many before. Ruth Cornwallis began the crusade against them and our Golden Rule President with his earnest appeals and wise prohibitions made a clean sweep of them. You remember Laurens Cornwallis's mysterious death. You said you would tell me what you knew about it when you came back. Please tell me now, Mr. Bombs." CHAPTER XXIII. MR. BOMBS TELLS ALL HE KNOWS ABOUT LAURENS CORNWALLIS' MYSTERIOUS DEATH. Bombs began to explain and Adelaide listened with silent attention until he came to the point where he sent the four boys to the river bank to make Laurens divide the fireworks with them. "How could you think of doing such a thing?" she asked. "I didn't stop to think, Miss Adelaide. I knew they were little rascals; but I had a feeling that Laurens was too goody-goody, and that somehow or other the two extremes would be equalized by setting them onto each other." "How dreadful! Mr. Bombs! And so you set your four little devils on to one little angel, to overpower him? You must have known they would destroy him!" "No! No! Miss Adelaide. I did not know that. I had the unwisdom and rashness of youth. I was only fifteen years old. I had a perfect passion for pyro-spectacles. I had been brought up on them you know; and I had faith in my inventions. They were intended to amuse, scare and mystify. I had been taught early and late that danger gives zest to enjoyment. Besides I had never known of anybody of consequence within my circle of acquaintance, being killed by fireworks; and I was of the opinion that they never would injure anybody except idiots, who deserved to be injured." "But you knew that Laurens Cornwallis was not an idiot, and that the boys were reckless and the fireworks dangerous."