"Do you know Mr. Bombs is only twenty-one. It seems so strange that he should take it into his head to be a Pyrotechnist. But his mother died when he was young and I suspect his father was too busy making his millions to think about his training. He told me once that his nurse used to take him to the beach every evening almost, to see the fireworks. So you see he had them burned into him almost." "Probably the nurse had a fondness for that sort of barbarism," replied Ruth. "O how wrong it is for parents to be so careless of their children! To trust them as they do, to the ignorant, the foolish and the wicked--they know not whom--often to anybody who is willing to wear a nurse's cap and apron." "I'm sure that's the way it was with Mr. Bombs. His head is full of fireworks. He went over to London on purpose to see King Pang and get hold of the secrets of the trade; but I think he found him rather foxy," laughed Adelaide. "Of course," said Ruth. "The English Pyro-king does not relish having a rival in the American market." CHAPTER XVIII. MR. BOMBS' DISGUST WITH CHICAGO AND THE PYRO-KING'S PLANS. Mr. Bombs came on from Chicago the evening after the first meeting of Ruth and Adelaide in the Library, greatly to the surprise of the Schwarmers, especially to Adelaide; but when she questioned him about it, he turned away without giving a reasonable excuse and went in search of her father. "What! torn yourself away from Chicago so soon," exclaimed Schwarmer--"the mighty central city--the huge centre of finance, rush and pluck!" "Faugh!" replied Bombs, turning green. "The huge centre of soot, dirt and smoke! The mighty central inferno, with the Pang emissaries plotting to reburn it, and measuring it to see how much more smoke and flame it will contain." "Hold on, Fons," laughed Schwarmer, "you are young yet and you are not in it. With the American millionaire _in it_ and the foreign millionaire out of it, Chicago might have its attractions, even for you--that is, in a business way, most assuredly it might. You might have to wade through mud or dust ankle deep to get at the heart of Finance--that mighty man-made canon in La Salle St.; but hark, Fons, let me tell you that when you are really and truly up and dressed for business, that canon will seem almost as glorious to you as the very finest of the God-made ones. Most assuredly it will. It's the brainy business man's paradise. Enough of the 'filthy lucre' is handled there every day to run a kingdom." "More's the pity," retorted Bombs. "Why can't they use a little of the stuff to abate the smoke and mud nuisance and fill up the 'bad lands' that girdle it like a slimy serpent?"