The consternation of the populace was indescribable; the whole of Golden Square was alive with men, women, and children, running wildly to and fro, and like rabbits in a warren, dashing in and out of the house doors. And under favour of this confusion, Somerset dragged away the lingering plotter.

`It was grand,' he continued to murmur: `it was indescribably grand. Ah, green Erin, green Erin, what a day of glory! and oh, my calumniated dynamite, how triumphantly hast thou prevailed!'

Suddenly a shade crossed his face; and pausing in the middle of the footway, he consulted the dial of his watch.

`Good God!' he cried, `how mortifying! seven minutes too early! The dynamite surpassed my hopes; but the clockwork, fickle clockwork, has once more betrayed me. Alas, can there be no success unmixed with failure? and must even this red-letter day be chequered by a shadow?'

`Incomparable ass!' said Somerset, `what have you done? Blown up the house of an unoffending old lady, and the whole earthly property of the only person who is fool enough to befriend you!'

`You do not understand these matters,' replied Zero, with an air of great dignity. `This will shake England to the heart. Gladstone, the truculent old man, will quail before the pointing finger of revenge. And now that my dynamite is proved effective - '

`Heavens, you remind me!' ejaculated Somerset. `That brick in your bag must be instantly disposed of. But how? If we could throw it in the river - '

`A torpedo,' cried Zero, brightening, `a torpedo in the Thames! Superb, dear fellow! I recognise in you the marks of an accomplished anarch.'

`True!' returned Somerset. `It cannot so be done; and there is no help but you must carry it away with you. Come on, then, and let me at once consign you to a train.'

`Nay, nay, dear boy,' protested Zero. `There is now no call for me to leave. My character is now reinstated; my fame brightens; this is the best thing I have done yet; and I see from here the ovations that await the author of the Golden Square Atrocity.'

`My young friend,' returned the other, `I give you your choice. I will either see you safe on board a train or safe in gaol.'

`Somerset, this is unlike you!' said the chymist. `You surprise me, Somerset.'

`I shall considerably more surprise you at the next police office,' returned Somerset, with something bordering on rage. `For on one point my mind is settled: either I see you packed off to America, brick and all, or else you dine in prison.'

`You have perhaps neglected one point,' returned the unoffended Zero: `for, speaking as a philosopher, I fail to see what means you can employ to force me. The will, my dear fellow - '

`Now, see here,' interrupted Somerset. `You are ignorant of anything but science, which I can never regard as being truly knowledge; I, sir, have studied life; and allow me to inform you that I have but to raise my hand and voice - here in this street - and the mob - '

`Good God in heaven, Somerset,' cried Zero, turning deadly white and stopping in his walk, `great God in heaven, what words are these? Oh, not in jest, not even in jest, should they be used! The brutal mob, the savage passions . . . . Somerset, for God's sake, a public-house!'

Somerset considered him with freshly awakened curiosity. `This is very interesting,' said he. `You recoil from such a death?'