Poetry is a divine art
And I am a poet to the heart,
And am writing these lovely lines
Right where the setting sun shines,
Just at the close of a beautiful day,
Under the milk-like Milky Way,
But which cannot be seen just yet though
Because of the sunset's brighter glow.
Yet I know it is there, and poesy may
Raise me nearer the Milky Way.
... And it did, for at this point the poet struck a match to light a cigarette, and the explosive mixture of natural gas and air about him fired first.
When last seen the poet was headed for the Milky Way.
HOW BENDER LOWERED THE PRICE OF DYNAMITE
Table of Contents Once, when entering my storage magazine at Maxim, New Jersey, in which were several carloads of dynamite, along with 37,000 pounds of nitrogelatin, made to fill an order from the Brazilian Government, I saw John Bender, one of my laboring men, calmly but emphatically opening a case of dynamite with cold chisel and hammer. With some epithetitious phraseology, I dismissed him.
It was not long after this incident, when the Boniface of the inn at Farmingdale, a nearby village, called upon me to buy some dynamite. He told me that he had employed John Bender to blow the stumps out of a meadow lot. I related to him my experience with that reckless person, and tried to impress him with the fact that Bender was temperamentally so constituted as to court death, not only for himself but for others about him, when handling dynamite.
But Boniface was unconvinced. He wanted Bender to do the work and he wanted the dynamite to do it with. Bender, he said, had assured him that he was a great expert in the handling of dynamite-that he could so place a charge under a stump that he could always tell beforehand the direction the stump would take, and about how far it would go under the impulse of the blast. Therefore, it was only a question of the price of the dynamite.
"Well," said I, "the dynamite you want is sixteen cents a pound, but I'll bet you the dynamite against the price of it that John Bender kills himself with it, so that if he does not succeed in blowing himself up and killing himself with the dynamite, you can have it for nothing. On the other hand, if he does blow himself up, you must pay for the dynamite."
A few days later, there was some hitch in Bender's exceptional luck. A particularly refractory old stump had resisted a couple of Bender's dynamic attacks. The failure to dislodge the stump Bender took as a personal affront, because it reflected upon his skill as a stump-blaster.
"Next time," said he, "something is going to happen."
He placed about twenty pounds of dynamite under the deep-rooted veteran, touched it off, and several things happened in very quick succession. The huge stump let go its hold on earth, and proceeded to hunt Bender. It was a level race, but the stump won. Striking Bender on the north quarter, it stove in four ribs, dislocated a few joints, and damaged him in several other respects and particulars.
Boniface came to settle for the dynamite.
"Sixteen cents a pound," I said. "Bender hasn't a chance in a hundred. Wait till the doctors are through with him."
"What do you say to a compromise," suggested Boniface, "of eight cents a pound? For really," quoth he, "I do not believe that Bender is more than half dead."
And the account was settled on that basis.
FOOLHARDY KRUGER
Table of Contents One of the most dare-devil men I ever had in my employ was a young fellow by the name of Joe Kruger. He was a very hard worker, and that won pardon for his many indiscretions.
I sent him one day to a neighboring explosives works to get a special kind of guncotton made there, and told him to have it sent by freight in a wet state. Instead, however, he filled about fifty pounds into a big burlap bag, in a perfectly dry state, and took it on the train with him and into the smoking-car, placing it on the seat beside him. He struck a match, lighted a cigar, and smoked throughout the entire journey. Had the least spark of match or cigar fallen upon the bag, the guncotton would have gone off with a tremendous flash and, although it would not have detonated, it would have burned him terribly, as well as any persons sitting near, and would have blown out all of the windows in the car.
At another time, in order to test the insensitiveness of a certain high explosive, a quantity of it was charged into a four-inch iron pipe, and the pipe hung against a tree as a target to ascertain whether or not the bullet would penetrate the high explosive without exploding it.
Kruger and I fired several shots with a Springfield rifle from cover at long range without hitting the cylinder of explosive. I was then called away and told Kruger to continue firing until he hit the mark. As soon as I left him, he advanced with the gun to within a few rods of the tree. His first shot penetrated the cylinder, exploding it with terrific violence, blowing the tree, which was about eight inches in diameter, clean off, while the fragments of metal flew about his head like hailstones. But none happened to hit him.
The following is the sort of adventure that is likely to happen to anyone under similar circumstances and has doubtless happened before and since.
Kruger had a dog which was well trained to fetch anything that his master threw for him. One day Kruger took some sticks of dynamite and went to a neighboring stream with the intention of dynamiting some fish. He attached fuze and exploder to a stick of the explosive, and threw it toward the stream, but, missing his aim, the dynamite landed on a rock.
The faithful dog, thinking that the stick had been thrown for him to bring, ran and returned with it to his master in great glee, with the fuze sizzing nearer and nearer to the explosive. Kruger ran in horror, the dog after him, deeming it great sport. The dog being the better runner, danced about his master. Finding it impossible to escape by running, Kruger climbed a tree with all the alacrity he could muster, and had just reached a vantage of safety when the dynamite exploded, and the dog-well, the dog was holding the stick in his mouth when it went off.
DISCHARGING PAT
Table of Contents A works foreman of mine who had been employed as assistant superintendent in another dynamite factory told me the following story:
He one day intercepted an Irish laborer who was taking a barrel, which had been used for settling nitroglycerin, down to the soda dry-house, with the intention of filling it with hot nitrate of soda from the drying-pans. The foreman scolded Pat roundly, and told him that, should he do such a reckless thing again, he would be instantly discharged. The foreman then went to the superintendent's office and reported the matter.
In the meantime, Patrick, utterly ignoring the injunction, simply waited for the foreman to disappear, then proceeded to the dry-house with the barrel and began to fill it with the hot nitrate of soda.
Over in the superintendent's office the foreman had just completed his narration of Pat's carelessness, when there was a thunderous report and a crash of glass, and Pat's booted foot landed on the office floor between them.
The superintendent dryly remarked, "Evidently, Pat is already discharged!"
LINES TO A LADY
Table of Contents Some years ago, when I was conducting experiments with detonators for my safety delay-action fuze, which was adopted by the United States Navy in 1908 as the service detonating fuze for high-explosive projectiles, I received instructions that a parcel of fulminate detonators, made at the torpedo station, had been received and were being held for me at Fort Lafayette, and I was told to go to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, whence I would be taken in a tug to the Fort for them.
After having procured the package, I concluded that it would be much more expeditious for me to take a trolley car home than to return by the tug. On entering the car and seating myself, I placed the package beside me on the seat, keeping my eye constantly upon it. It was, by the way, perfectly safe to carry if subject to merely ordinary handling, but it would not do to jump on it or to kick it about much, for, in that case, there might be some energetic results.
No sooner had I comfortably seated myself in the car than a huge, determined, militant-looking woman entered, brushing a few small men aside. Seeing all the seats occupied except the space where the package was, she turned and hurled herself backward and downward.
Her movements were so quick that I had barely time to throw my left arm firmly under her, and, although I am unusually strong, I had all I could do to support her enormous bulk. When she felt my arm beneath her, protecting the package, she was all the more indignant and determined to crush the package in order to teach me a lesson, and she glared upon me fiercely. I finally succeeded, by throwing my shoulder against her, in toppling her sufficiently to remove the package with my right hand, and then I let her down upon the seat.
I seldom wax poetical, and never permit myself to write verses to ladies when I am not sure that they will be gratefully received. But, in this case, I side-stepped a little from my usual course, and, taking my note-book from my pocket, wrote the following lines, which I folded up nicely, and when I arrived at my street, I handed the paper to Her Militancy:
Dear Madam,...
