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 Oncle Charles did not seem to be pleased at the situation. “I’m not stopping you in your work?” he asked of Prokop aimlessly.

“Not in the least,” said Prokop, rolling some substance in his fingers.

“What are you doing?”

“Making explosives. Please, that bottle,” he said, turning to the Princess.

She gave it him and added openly and provocatively, “Do you?” Oncle Rohn recoiled as if he had been struck but soon gave himself up to contemplating the rapid, though extremely cautious, way in which Prokop was pouring some drops of a yellow liquid on to a piece of clay.

He coughed and asked: “How do you ignite that?”

“By shaking it,” answered Prokop shortly, continuing to pour out the liquid.

Oncle Charles turned to the Princess. “If you are frightened, Uncle,” she said dryly, “you needn’t wait for me.” He sat down resignedly and tapped with his stick on a tin box which had once contained Californian peaches. “What does that contain?”

“That’s a hand-grenade,” explained Prokop. “Hexani trofenyl methylnitramin. Feel the weight of it.”

Oncle Rohn becomebecame [sic] flurried. “Wouldn’t it perhaps be better to be a little more careful?” he asked, twisting in his fingers a match-box which he had picked up from the desk.

“Certainly,” agreed Prokop and took it out of his hand. “That's chlorargonat. Not to be played with.”