humorous in the dismemberment of three poor workmen?"

"Oh, it isn't that--it isn't that, my dear," smiled the inventor. "It
merely struck me as funny--this old notion of explosives."

"What old notion?" I inquired.

"Why, the fallacy of the present methods of manipulating
nitro-glycerine."

"I presume you have a better scheme?" I advanced.

"Mr. Griggs," cried Hawkins' wife, in terror that was not all feigned,
"don't suggest it!"

"Now, my dear----" began Hawkins, stiffening at once.

"Hush, Herbert, hush! You've made mischief enough with your
inventions, but you have never, thank goodness, dabbled in
explosives."

"If I wanted to tell you what I know about explosives, and what I
could do----" declaimed Hawkins.

"Don't tell us, Mr. Hawkins," laughed my wife. "A sort of
superstitious dread comes over me at the notion."

"Mrs. Griggs!" exclaimed Hawkins, eying my wife with a glare which in
any other man would have earned him the best licking I could give
him--but which, like many other things, had to be excused in Hawkins.