Fiction > Book editions > London, 1885 - Dynamiter

118 NEW AKABIAX NIGHTS.
more emphatic, more striking, and (if you please) more
popular method, of the explosive bomb. Yes,' he cried,
with unshaken hope, ' I will still continue and, I feel it
in my bosom, I shall yet succeed.'
' Two things I remark,' said Somerset. ' The first
somewhat staggers me. Have you, then — in all this
course of life, which you have sketched so vividly — have
you not once succeeded ? '
' Pardon me,' said Zero. ' I have had one success.
You behold in me the author of the outrage of Red Lion
Court.'
' But if I remember right,' objected Somerset, ' the
thing was a fiasco. A scavenger's barrow and some
copies of the ' Weekly Budget ' — these were the only
victims.'
' You will pardon me again,' returned Zero with
positive asperity : ' a child was injured.'
' And tliat fitly Ijrings me to my second point,' said
Somerset. ' For I observed you to employ the word " in-
discriminate." Now, surely, a scavenger's barrow and a
child (if child there were) represent the very acme and
top pin-point of indiscriminate and, pardon me, of ineffec-
tual reprisal.'
' Did I employ the word ? ' asked Zero. ' Well, I will
not defend it. But for efticiency, you touch on graver
matters ; and before entering upon so vast a subject,
permit me once more to fill our glasses. Disputation is
dry work,' he added, with a charming gaiety of manner.
Once more accordingly the pair pledged each other in
a stalwart grog ; and Zero, leaning back with an air of
some complacency, proceeded more largely to develop his
opinions.
' The indiscriminate 1 ' he began. ' War, my dear
sir, is indiscriminate. War spares not the child ; it
spares not the barrow of the harmless scavenger. No
more,' he concluded, beaming, ' no more do I. Whatever
may strike fear, whatever may confound or paralyse the
activities of the guilty nation, barrow or child, imperial
Parliament or excursion steamer, is welcome to my