The Anarchists, much interested, murmured approval. "Good egg!" observed the President. "We'll put it into the fire to-morrow morning before he comes in, and after we have been at work ten minutes or so the thing will go off and blow the whole place to smithereens." "Golly!" gobbled the Anarchists. "What about us, Stinker?" inquired a cautious conspirator. "Shan't we get damaged?" Stinker waved away the objection. "We shall know it's coming," he said; "so we shall be able to dodge. But it will be a nasty jar for Bashan." There was a silence, full of rapt contemplation of to-morrow morning. Then the discordant voice of Ashley minor broke in. "I don't believe it will work. All your inventions are putrid, Stinker." "I'll fight you!" squealed the outraged scientist, bounding to his feet. "I expect it'll turn out to be a fire-extinguisher, or something like that," pursued the truculent Ashley. "Hold the bomb," said Stinker to the President, "while I----" "Sit down," urged the other Anarchists, drawing in their toes. "There's no room here. Ashley minor, chuck it!" "It won't work," muttered Ashley doggedly. Suddenly a brilliant idea came upon Stinker. "Won't work, won't it?" he screamed. "All right, then! We'll shove it into this fire now, and you see if it doesn't work!" Among properly constituted Anarchistic Societies it is not customary, when the efficacy of a bomb is in dispute, to employ the members as a _corpus vile_. But the young do not fetter themselves with red-tape of this kind. With one accord Stinker's suggestion was acclaimed, and the bomb was thrust into the glowing coals of Rumford's study fire. The brotherhood, herded together within a few feet of the grate--the apartment measured seven feet by six--breathed hard and waited expectantly. Five minutes passed--then ten. "It ought to be pretty ripe now," said the inventor anxiously. The President, who was sitting next the window, prudently muffled his features in the curtain. The others drew back as far as they could--about six inches--and waited. Nothing happened. "I am sure it will work all right," declared the inventor desperately. "Perhaps the temperature of this fire----" He knelt down, and began to blow upon the flickering coals. There was a long and triumphant sniff from Master Ashley. "I said it was only a rotten stinkp--" he began. BANG! There is a special department of Providence which watches over the youthful chemist. The explosion killed no one, though it blew the coals out of the grate and the pictures off the walls. The person who suffered most was the inventor. He was led, howling but triumphant, to the Sanatorium. * * * * * "Luckily, sir," explained Rumford to Mr. Bull a few days later, in answer to a kindly inquiry as to the extent of the patient's injuries, "it was only his face." [Illustration: THE NIPPER] CHAPTER FIVE THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE I