Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-02-05
"stl Drilling Directing the Insidous
Accomplish"
firing Accomplish.

measuring, and finally, with cool delbera-
ton. cutting every wire that In any way
looked like burglar-alarm connection. TAX
ing care to leave only the lighting circuit
intact Then, holding before him his little
two-candle incandescent lamp, scarcely
bigger than his thumb NALL he CROPPED to-
ward the iron covered door that divided
one half Of the building from the other.
Here he directed his thin shaft of light
into the crack between the heavy door and
it's studding. and his squirting eyes made
out the iron lock-bar that held him out.
From his vest pocket, where they stood in
row like glmmering pencils, he took out
one of the slim steel drills, adjusted it
noiselessly in the drill-fange, and snapped
shut his switch. There was the quick spit
of blue spark and of a sudden, the inani-
mate thing of steel throbbed and sang and
quivered with mysterious life. AS he
glanced down at ii, in its fierce revolutions,
he realized that once more he had for an
accomplice that Old-time, silent. and ever
ready assistant which for years had been a
well-tested and faithful friend. The mere
companionship with SO familiar force
brought back to him his waning confidence.
He forced the whirling drill through the
door-crack and in against the bar 1t ate
through the soft iron as though it had been
bar of cheese. Eight carefully placed
perforations, side by side, had severed the
end of the lockshaft He shut off the cur
rent, confidently, ard swung open the heavy
door. The falling piece of iron made little
tinkle of sound on the cement flooring. then
l IT,,
told himself, captured the enemy's out
posts
Cautiously he felt his way across the
warm cellar, up the steps. and at last faced
his one definite barrier, the door of solid
STEEL abutted by even more solid masonry.
The builders of that door had done their
best to make ii forbidding to men of his
turn of mind, Durkin ruminated. as he felt
and sounded and tested despondently over
it's taciturn painted surface.
He studied the hinges carefully, through
his tiny lamp. They were impregnable As
he had surmised, his only way was to cut
out, inch by inch. the three heavy steel
shafts, or bolt-bars, which slipped and
fitted into steel castings also, apparently, en-
bedded in solid masonry.
Adjusting his drill he closed the switch
once more, and, bracing the instruments
head against his breastbone, watched the
slender, humming; spinning shaft bite and
grind and burrow its way into the slowly
yielding bar. From little pocket-can,
every minute or two, he squrted kerosene
in on the dril-tip. The pungent smell of
the scorching oil, as 1t spread on the heated
steel, rose almost suffocatingly to his nos
trilS in the furnace heated warmth of the
cellar and for weeks afterward remained
an indistfrct and odious memory to him.
When his first hole was bored and his
little drill raced wildly through into space,
like the screw OF liner On the crest OF a
wave, he started n second, close beside the
first; then q third, and fourth, and a
fifth, slowly honeycombing the thick steel
with MS minute excavations. sometimes d
drill would snap off short, and he would
have to draw a fresh one from his stock.
Sometimes it did not bite sharply, and he
tried another And still he stood drilling,
directing the power of his silent, insidious,
untiring accomplish whose spirit crooned
and burned and sighed itself out through
the wire at his feet
AS he worked, he lost all track of time; at
ter he had started what he knew to be the
last hole. he stopped and looked at his
watch, as casually as he had done often
enough after night of operating the key
In a dispatcher's office. To his horror, he
saw that it had stopped, stunned with a
natural enough electrolytic paralysis. 1t
might not yet be II, or it might be in the
morning; time. from the moment he had
taken off his shoes in Frances Canu.er' s
little back room, had been annihilated to
him. He wondered, in sudden alarm, If she
were still maintaining her patrol outside, up
and down the block. He wondered. too, as
he drove the little drill home for the last
time, and cautiously pried open the great,
heavy door. If she had sent any signal in
from the street front, and he had missed it.
He even wondered, quakingly, If daylight
would not overtake them at their work
when his startled eyes. CHANGING to fall on