"Stamped out?" said Edward Henry, with the air of omniscience that
a father is bound to assume. "Postage stamps are stamped out--by a
machine--you see."
Robert's scorn of this explanation was manifest.
"Well," Edward Henry, piqued, made another attempt, "you stamp a fire
out with your feet." And he stamped illustratively on the floor. After
all, the child was only eight.
"I knew all that before," said Robert, coldly. "You don't understand."
"What makes you ask, dear? Let us show father your leg." Nellie's
voice was soothing.
"Yes," Robert murmured, staring reflectively at the ceiling. "That's
it. It says in the _Encyclopaedia_ that hydrophobia is stamped out in
this country--by Mr.. Long's muzzling order. Who is Mr.. Long?"
A second bomb had fallen on exactly the same spot as the first, and
the two exploded simultaneously. And the explosion was none the
less terrible because it was silent and invisible. The tidy domestic
chamber was strewn in a moment with an awful mass of wounded
susceptibilities. Beyond the screen the _nick-nick_ of grandmother's
steel needles stopped and started again. It was characteristic of her
temperament that she should recover before the younger generations
could recover. Edward Henry, as befitted his sex, regained his nerve a
little earlier than Nellie.
"I told you never to touch my _Encyclopaedia_," said he, sternly.
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