not believe that this was one grain of the new powder."

"That macaroni stick a grain of powder?" cried Ned.

"Yes, we'll call it a grain," went on the young inventor, "just
as the brown, hexagonal cube you saw was a grain. You see, Ned,
the idea is to explode all the powder at once--to get
instantaneous action. It must all burn up at once as soon as it
is detonated, or set off.

"To do that you have to have every grain acted on at the same
moment, and that could not be done if the powder was in one solid
chunk, or closely packed. For that reason they make it in
different shapes, so it will lie loose in the firing chamber,
just as a lot of jack-straws are piled up. In fact, some of the
new powder looks like jack-straws. Some, as this, for instance,
looks like macaroni. Other is in cubes, and some in long
strings."

As he spoke Tom struck a match and held the flames near the end
of one of the "macaroni" sticks.

"Caesar's grandmother!" yelled Ned. "Are you crazy, Tom?" as he
started to leap for a window.

"Don't get excited," spoke Tom, quietly. "There's no danger,"
and he actually set fire to the stick of queer powder, which
burned like some wax taper.

"But--but--" stammered Ned.