The Argosy, Vol. XXV, No. 1 — page 127: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AN AMATEUR IN DYNAMITE. 127 in a reverie. ‘Then seeming to suddenly remember that his window was open, he started, stepped quickly to it, and looked out. All was silence and darkness. Ottilie, in her unlighted kitchen, would not have been seen by him, even had she not moved to one side, as she did. Reassured, he drew down the shade, and ina few minutes the extinguishing of his light indicated that he had gone to bed. Ottilie waited for him to fall asleep. She knew intuitively what was in that package and the thought of what it might do made her shudder. Ever since he had been repeating Max’s mouthings against the ‘‘ tyrants’’ she had expected it. But she would save him, in spite of himself, if her woman’s wit was equal to her love and courage. When she deemed time enough had elapsed for him to be asleep, she set to work. From its place beneath the stationary tubs she drew a long, but narrow, ironing beard, carried it to the balcony and rested its ends on the light iron railings, crossing the abyss like a bridge. That it was insecure she “knew very well. ‘The railings did not deserve much confidence ; if the board should bend with her weight in the middle, it would be likely to slip off ; it was a narrow path for anybody but a rope dancer to tread in the dark; and the stone flagging of the yard was full fifty feet below ; yet the only reflec- tion that made the brave girl hesitate, even a moment, was ‘‘If anybody should see me going across to Gottlieb’s window, what would be thought?’’ With light, quick steps she crossed the chasm, reached his window and groping beneath the blind upon the table, which was within easy reach, took the package from under Gottlieb’s hat. ‘Tightly clutching her prize, she re- recrossed the treacherous bridge—which she temporarily drew in and laid upon the balcony—and regained her own apartments. With the shade carefully drawn down and the gas lighted, she examined the package. A stout manilla paper wrapping inclosed about a pound of a queer, yellowish brown granular stuff, that had a damp, greasy feel, a sickly, sulphurous odor, and a sweetish taste. She had never seen dynamite before, but had no doubt of this being, as she reflected, ‘‘ the slumbering devil that Max teaches the poor fools will wake up to right all their wrongs.”’ Now that she had it, what should she do with it? If she were simply to destroy it, Max would supply more; Gottlieb would know she could not betray him, and would yet do some dreadful thing. Her sense of the respon- sibility she had assumed in sharing his guilty secret became agonizing. All at once an inspiration came to her, as good ideas always come to those whose souls in great travail seek them. She would make some innocent dynamite, which would be much safer for Gottlieb to handle than the real stuff, and it would go hard if she could not find some way of giving him a salutary lesson from its employment. And this ishow she made dynamite from her domestic materials. ; In a large bowl she put a quantity of yellow corn meal equal to that of the dynamite. It was too light in color, but a sepia cake—from Hugo’s box of water colors—dissolved and mixed through it made that right. A little olive oil and brown sugar gave the greasy feel and sweetness of the original. Eomichook (S@)