fulminate of mercury and various kinds of detonators. The explosive force of No. I dynamite, weight for weight, is four times that of gunpowder. Bulk for bulk, the dynamite being much heavier, it is over seven times as powerful as gunpowder. Blasting gelatin has nearly six times, weight for weight, and a fraction less than ten times, bulk for bulk, the power of gunpowder. Gun-cotton and No. 1 dynamite are about equal in explosive strength. Dynamite is not allowed on passenger trains in England, but is transported with great freedom on the Continent, and thirty thousand tons of it have been shipped on the English and Continental railways with out accident up to date. Of course, every package and case carry explicit instructions, but that the danger is small the immunity from explosions in transport clearly shows.

The moral of which is, that dynamite is safe and blasting gelatin is safer if they are treated with only reasonable care. "The accidents do not occur here but in the use of it," says Mr. Johnston. "If the company's explicit printed instructions

were followed, accidents would scarcely be known." Accidents often occur in thawing after an explosive has been frozen; but these arise from the incredible recklessness of miners. Small accidents, also, transpire at Ardeer in the repair of pipes. A drop of nitroglycerin which has secreted itself in a crack or crevice in the metal is sometimes struck by a hard tool, and costs a plumber one or more fingers.

These facts concerning dynamite are well known, and they are very reassuring. As you enter the train to leave Ardeer, however, the old habit of doubt reasserts itself. A bit of white fluff on your coat sleeve is viewed with the greatest suspicion. The question arises, "Is it cotton or gun-cotton?" Nerving yourself to the ordeal, you deliberately pick it off. then carefully throw it out of the window to wreak its fell purpose, if it has one, on the landscape. Then you settle back with a vague desire to look at a thermometer. You have acquired a respect, an admiration, for any and all thermometers, which will abide with you to the end of your days.

66

I.

THE HE music-room on the top floor of Number Five was filled with the Aladdin" company at rehearsal. Dickson Quartus, commonly known as Dick Four, was Aladdin, stage manager, ballet master, half the orchestra, and largely librettist, for the "book" had been rewritten and filled with local allusions. The pantomime was to be given next week, in the downstairs study occupied by Aladdin, Abanazar, and the Emperor of China. The Slave of the Lamp, with the Princess Badroulbadour and the Widow Twankay, owned the little study across the same landing, so that the company could be easily assembled. The floor shook to the stamp-and-go of the ballet, while Aladdin, in pink cotton tights, a blue and tinsel jacket, and a plumed hat, banged alternately on the piano and his banjo. He was the moving spirit of the game, as befitted a senior who had passed his Army Preliminary and hoped to enter Sandhurst next spring.

Aladdin came to his own at last, Abanazar lay poisoned on the floor, and the Widow Twankay danced her dance, and the company decided it would "come all right on the night."

44

What about the last song, though?" said the Emperor, a tallish, fair-headed boy

with the ghost of a mustache, at which he pulled manfully. "We need a rousing old tune.

64 6

'John Peel' ? 'Drink, Puppy, Drink'?" suggested Abanazar, smoothing his baggy lilac pajamas. Abanazar never looked more than one-half awake, but he owned a soft, slow smile which well suited the part of the Wicked Uncle.

"Stale,' said Aladdin. "Might as well have Grandfather's Clock.' What's that thing you were humming at 'prep' last night, Stalky?"

The Slave of the Lamp, in black tights and doublet, a black silk half-mask on his forehead, whistled lazily where he lay on the top of the piano. It was a catchy music-hall tune.

Dick Four cocked his head critically, and squinted down a large red nose.

"Once more, and I can pick it up," he said, strumming. "Sing the words."

joes-play an' dance at the same time. You try, Tertius."

The Emperor pushed aside his peagreen sleeves of state, and followed Dick Four on a heavy nickel-plated banjo.

Yes, but I'm dead. Bung in the middle of the stage, too," said Abanazar. "Oh, that's Beetle's biznai," said Dick Four. "Vamp it up, Beetle.. Don't keep us waiting all night. You've got to get Pussy out of the light somehow, and bring us all in dancin' at the end."

"All right. You two play it again," said Beetle, who, in a gray skirt and a wig of chestnut sausage-curls, set slantwise above a pair of spectacles mended with an old bootlace, represented the Widow Twankay. He waved one leg in time to the hammered refrain, and the banjoes grew louder.

"Um! Ah! Er -Aladdin now has won his wife,'" he sang, and Dick Four repeated it.

"Your Emperor is appeased." Tertius flung out his chest as he delivered his line.

"Now jump up, Pussy! Say, 'I think I'd better come to life!' Then we all take hands and come forward: 'We hope you've all

been pleased.' Twiggez-vous?"

"Nous twiggons. Good enough. What's the chorus for the ballet? It's four kicks and a turn," said Dick Four. "Oh! Er!

John Short will ring the curtain down,
And ring the prompter's bell;
We hope you know before you go
That we all wish you well."

"Rippin'! Rippin'! Now for the Widow's scene with the Princess. Hurry up, McTurk."

A dark, sallow, raw-boned Irish boy in a violet silk skirt and a coquettish blue turban slouched forward as one thoroughly ashamed of himself. The Slave of the Lamp climbed down from the piano, and dispassionately kicked him. "Play up,

fitting tights, but Beetle strove to ef face himself behind the piano. A gray princess-skirt borrowed from a dayboy's mother and a spotted cotton bodice unsystematically padded with writingpaper make one ridiculous. And in other regards Beetle had a bad conscience.

"As usual!" sneered King. "Futile foolery just when your careers, such as they may be, are hanging in the balance. I see! Ah, I see! The old gang of criminals-allied forces of disorderCorkran"-the Slave of the Lamp smiled politely-" McTurk "-the Irishman scowled-" and, of course, the unspeakable Beetle, our friend Gigadibs." Abanazar, the Emperor, and Aladdin had more or less of characters, and King passed them over. "Come forth, my inky buffoon, from behind yonder instrument of music! You supply, I presume, the doggerel for this entertainment. Esteem yourself to be, as it were, a poet ?"

"He's found one of 'em," thought Beetle, noting the flush on King's cheekbone.

"I have just had the pleasure of reading an effusion of yours to my address, I believe-an effusion intended to rhyme. So-so you despise me, Master Gigadibs, do you? I am quite aware-you need not explain-that it was ostensibly not intended

for my edification. I read it with laughteryes, with laughter. These paper pellets of inky boys-still a boy we are, Master Gigadibs-do not disturb my equanimity.

"Wonder which it was," thought Beetle. He had launched many lampoons on an appreciative public ever since he discovered that it was possible to convey reproof in rhyme.

In sign of his unruffled calm, King proceeded to tear Beetle, whom he called Gigadibs, slowly asunder. From his untied shoestrings to his mended spectacles (the life of a poet at a big school is hard) he held him up to the derision of his associates-with the usual result. His wild flowers of speech-King had an unpleasant tongue-restored him to good humor at the last. He drew a lurid picture of Beetle's latter end as a scurrilous pamphleteer dying in an attic, scattered a few compliments over McTurk and Corkran, and, reminding Beetle that he must come up for judgment when called upon, went to common-room, where he triumphed anew over his victims.

'And the worst of it," he explained in a loud voice over his soup, "is that I waste such gems of sarcasm on their thick heads. It's miles above them, I'm certain."

"We-ell," said the school chaplain slowly, "I don't know what Corkran's appreciation of your style may be, but young McTurk reads Ruskin for his amusement."

"Nonsense, Clay! He does it to show off. I mistrust the dark Celt."

"He does nothing of the kind. I went into their study the other night, unofficially, and McTurk was gluing up the back of four odd numbers of Fors Clavigera.

"I don't know anything about their private. lives," said a mathematical master hotly, "but I've learned by bitter experience that Number Five study are best left alone. They are utterly soulless young devils.' He blushed as the others laughed.

"Dunno," said Beetle, struggling out of the skirt. "There was one about his hunting for popularity with the small boys, and the other one was one about him in hell, tellin' the devil he was a Balliol man. I swear both of 'em rhymed all right. By gum! P'raps Manders minor showed him both! I'll correct his cæsuras.'

He disappeared down two flights of stairs, flushed a small pink and white boy in a form-room next door to King's study, which, again, was immediately below his own, and chased him up the corridor into a form-room sacred to the revels of the Lower Third. Thence he came back, greatly disordered, to find McTurk, Stalky, and the others of the company in his study enjoying an unlimited "brew"-coffee, cocoa, buns, new bread hot and steaming, sardine, sausage, ham, and tongue paste,

"Ah, that was because you locked your trunk and we wasted half the afternoon hammering it open. We might have pawned it if you'd behaved like a Christian, Turkey."

64

66

My aunt!" said Abanazar, you chaps are communists. Vote of thanks to Beetle, though."

"That's beastly unfair," said Stalky, "when I took all the trouble to pawn it. Beetle never knew he had a watch. Oh, I say, RabbitsEggs gave me a lift into Bideford this afternoon."

Rabbits-Eggs was the local carrier-an outcrop of the early Devonian formation. It was Stalky who had invented his unlovely name. "He was pretty average drunk or he wouldn't have done it. Rabbits-Eggs is a little shy of me, somehow. But I swore it was pax between us, and gave him a bob. He stopped at two pubs on the way in; he'll be howling drunk to-night. Oh, don't begin reading, Beetle; there's a council of war on. What the deuce is the matter with your collar?"'

pilchards, three jams, and at least as many pounds of Devonshire cream.

"My hat!" said he, throwing himself upon the banquet. "Who stumped up for this, Stalky?" It was within a month of term end, and blank starvation had reigned in the studies for weeks.

"You," said Stalky, serenely.

Confound you! You haven't been popping my Sunday bags, then?"

Keep your hair on. It's only your watch.'

"Watch! I lost it-weeks ago. Out on the Burrows, when we tried to shoot the old ram-the day our pistol burst."

"It dropped out of your pocket (you're so beastly careless, Beetle), and McTurk and I kept it for you. I've been wearing it for a week, and you never noticed. Took it into Bideford after dinner to-day. Got thirteen and sevenpence. Here's the

ticket."

"Well, that's pretty average cool," said Abanazar behind a slab of cream and jam, as Beetle, reassured upon the safety of his Sunday trousers, showed not even surprise, much less resentment. Indeed, it was McTurk who grew angry, saying:

"You gave him the ticket, Stalky? You pawned it? You unmitigated beast! Why, last month you and Beetle sold mine! Never got a sniff of any ticket."

"Chivied Manders minor into the Lower Third box-room. Had all his beastly little friends on top of me," said Beetle, from behind a jar of pilchards and a book.

"You ass! Any fool could have told you where Manders would bunk to," said McTurk.

"I didn't think," said Beetle, meekly, scooping out pilchards with a spoon.

"Course you didn't. You never do." McTurk adjusted Beetle's collar with a savage tug. "Don't drop oil all over my Fors,' or I'll scrag you!"

It's one of

"Shut up, you-you Irish Biddy! 'Tisn't your beastly 'Fors.' mine."

The book was a fat, brown-backed volume of the latter sixties, which King had once thrown at Beetle's head that Beetle might see whence the name Gigadibs came. Beetle had quietly annexed the book, and had seen-several things. The quartercomprehended verses lived and ate with him, as the be-dropped pages showed. He removed himself from all that world, drifting at large with wondrous men and women, till McTurk hammered the pilchard spoon on his head and he snarled.