The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1894-11-14

any one, avoided those clubs and supposed
secret societies which sought to compass
collectively the fall of the monarchy and
duly completed his studies. Mingled with
these studies was the ever prevailing
thought Of how best to effect his purpose.
At length he mado up his mind. Learn
ing in quite a casual way a fact not gon-
orally known-that the car had a great
weakness for q special kind of chocolate
bonbon-he determined hat through this
apparently harmless medium should his
friend he avenged.
A little patient inquiry olicited the fact
that a box Of these special chocolates found
it's way regularly every week TO that part
of the empire which the car happened to
honor with his presence, and also that the
makers of the precious sweets were a well
known house in ST. Petersburg famed for
it's CONNECTIONS. The death of his father
at his juncture furnished him with an
excuse for earning his own livelihood, and
on the pretense that he was left penniless
and consequently unable without capital
to benefit by his medical studies he made
it his business to get recommended by q
few friends to this highly respectable
confectioner as an inexperienced but very
willing volunteer. To such lengths will
the feeling Of revenge bring a man.
After careful inquiry-and you may be
quite sure the investigation by ~le police,
who are always interested in such changes,
were most .ninute-the services of Petrus
were accepted, and he set to with a will
to master his new trade.
The privilege of making the czar's
sweets was accorded to a man who had
been in the firms employ for many years,
and who was considered above suspicion.
1t was to this post that Petrus aimed to
be appointed. Not till then could he put
In practice the pretty little plan he had
matured fer changing the course of events
at the winter palace.
To the ordinary mind bent on destruc-
ton accessibility to tho manufacture of
the royal colnhts under such circun-
stances would suggest a strong dose of
poison concealed under the chocolate en-
amel. Not so did Petrus view the mat
ter. The useful arsenic, the strong and
serviceable strychnine, did not commend
themselves to tho young mans fancy. Be
sides the chance of a promptly administer
ed emetic saving the sufferer and destroy
ing the would be assassin's hopes, there
was a lack of s~ensationalism in the at
tempt by such means.
There must be no confusing the issue
with that Of a temporary indisposition
with which the public might be 1nisled. No
the result must be something deadly, yet
electrifying; appalling, yet far removed
from the commonplace, ard in this spirit
did the genial Petrus strive to improve
the shining hour. The bomb was Trit-
reff's idol--not the ordinary article with
the fuse attached or the clumsy mechan-
ism which requires to be thrown at the
81, hiaat- otOTao1a5 ont for dactrI1afinn No
something much more dainty and origi-
nal. Not even the most up to date nihil-
list had SO far aspired to fame by contriv-
ing a bomb which coE1d be eaten, and
which in the act would destroy forever the
partaker's taste for the sweets Of life. 1t
was to be left to Petrus Tritreff to inau-
gurate the chocolate bomb by means of
which the head of Alexander II would be
blown off his shoulders in the midst OF
his courtiers and guards ere a hand could
be raised to save him.
Two years had passed in his employers
service before Petrus considered that his
opportunity had come. In those two years
his experiences and assiduity had gained
him his masters favor, and suspicion, ii
any existed land where does it not exist
in Russia?), had been lulled. Petrus was
now competent to take the place of the
master workman who continued to make
weekly a fresh supply of the royal sweet
meat should he by any accident be unable
to attend to the important duty.
Needless to say, there came a day when
the faithful workman was absent from
his post. Found i'll in bed after an even
ing's harmless enjoyment in the company
of Petrus, it may have been that the lat
ter's knowledge of drugs had something
to do with his friends indisposition. Any
how, bereft of the mans services at the
last moment, it fell that Petrus, with
many a~dmonitions and supervisors, was
ordered to prepare the box of sweets. He
had been allowed previously to try his
hand at the important preparation and
had succeeded SO well that the worthy pro-
prietor had no foar of a complaint from
his royal master.
With i'll concealed triumph Petrus
buckled to his task, and in the presence
of tasters frsln the palace prepared his
sweets to every ones satisfaction. Packed
in a delicately lined box, the oblong blocks
of chocolate, about an inch long by half
an inch broad, looked most tempting to
the eye. Little did the supervisors realize
that in one of the top rows of the box
lurked a sweet that had been carefully
prepared beforehand and skillfully substi-
tutod by Petrus for the real article.
In his chemical researches he had dis
covered IN explosive of terrible power.
capable Of extreme concentration, and
which could be stirred into instant and
deadly activity by fusion with a particu-
lar acid. To this end the interior of the
chocolate had been carefully divided lon
gitudinally by a thin wall of soft but i'm
pervious composition. On the one side of
this wall was placed the explosive and on
the other the acid, the union of which
would produce such disastrous results.
With crafty and farseeing deliberation
Petrus placed the division lengthwise in
and not across the sweet and SO insured
the fracture of the partition and consequent
explosion should the partaker elect to
make two bites of the confection. Covered
over with it's coating of real chocolate, the
deadly engine, as it ley snugly in the box,
defled detection. and the moment that its
victim discovered its unusual flavor that
moment would he cease to feel any other
sensation on this earth.
1t was quite in keeping with Tritref's
Ingenuity that this promiscuous placing
of the fatal sweet in the box should entail
a fair amount OF uncertainty as to when
its mission would be accomplished. 1t
afforded him all tho joys of anticipation,
and as he found it convenient to take a
little holiday as soon as the box. was dis
patched he Rugged himself all the way to