The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-09-25

the name of all that's rational, what have we got in this country to make their boy scouts think twice about talk ing us onY
 Ashby leaned forward and pulled the driver from his golf bag. He weighed the stick doubtfully in his hand and waved it critically before him. ,"Oh. but was rotten this afternoon; couldn't smack ball straight hun- dred yards, and my second year at it too. But, then, it takes four years to make golfer-one season to the driv- CT. one to the midiron, one to the mashie and one on the greens, and you've got to begin as kid too. Bob by, pardon me; as a brother-in-law you've made my sister happy and usu- ally you're entertaining, but doesn't it sometimes occur to your Annapolis and West Point alumni that your busi- ness must horribly overdevelop the bump of foreboding?"
 '.In other words?"
 "Of course know we haven't all the ships and all the men ready to take on the regent at the drop of the hat, but does any sane man suppose that the prince is going to attack us for the sake. of a few first successes when he knows we're bound to lick him in the end? You bet not. So there'n be no war unless we want it. We don't want it; so that's all there is to it." He speared his driver violently back in the bag among the other golf clubs and sat staring away.
 At twenty-two, after finishing an en- gineering course at the University of Illinois, he had started work in the shops of the Ashby Brass company, which his grandfather had founded and of which his father now was pres ident After two years in the shops, | two more in the sales department, an- other at credits and accounting, he now-at twenty-seven-had his own office with the title of assistant su- perintendent under his name on the door. His salary had doubled in the | last year, and all the future was his. Outside of business, he was a leader in sports at the country club. He had his own roadster, and he owned a mo- | torboat on the river. Above all, he just had won, as his wife to be, Agnes l Ware, the sweetest and most sought after girl in his world. Altogether, life -as Jim Ashby found it lived in Illi- nois-was most satisfactory, safe, and delightful institution.
 Jim sat, awaiting Bob's retort. Re ceiving none, he looked about and saw that Wendell had produced from shoe box which was beside his chair q strangely shaped brass and steel ob- ject, somewhat larger than two fists. It had been cast at the Ashby Brass works, or, at least, part of it had, for the rounded part was precisely accord ing to pattern in use there, but this piece had been combined with others to compose an instrument which, as a whole, was quite unlike anything ia miliar toSJim.
 What the deuce is thatT'
 Bob handed it over. "What do you make of it?''
 Jim examined the thing gingerly. Ii was heavy metal bulb, cast very thick, with a narrow neck and with rins-'Sllich appeared to be plungel pins-protruding all about. The purpose of these so obviously was to detonate a contained explosive that Jim looked quickly at his brother-in-law before touching any of the plungers.
 ''Push it in,' Bob said. "The thins isn't loaded"
 'What should it be loaded with?"
 "Picric acid pr any good high explo Gvc: not q particularly large charge k required. 1t seems to be an incen
 "Of course it's all rightr' Nathan Ashby dismissed the matter violently "What harm could they do?"
 | The Ashby Brass company, like many manufacturing concerns, hat the laboratory for the trying out O. new processes or devices, and mei who were experimenting with a new device worked there also in the even ing. Ingouf and Enloe were ma chinists who had been working to gether on a new type of valve, Jin Ashby knew. Indeed, his father re gently had relieved them of their reg
 ular tasks to give all their days. a