s
table-mat. With this she returned to her room and locked herself in.

The chambermaid had "been and gone," but Josie's drawer was still
locked and its precious contents intact. The girl scraped the surface
of the table-mat with her pen-knife until she had secured enough loose
fibre to serve her purpose and then she proceeded to restuff the fuse
with the asbestos fibre the entire length of the section from which she
had removed the powder. Then she pushed the end of the fuse into the
hole in the bomb, wired it as before, and replaced the long fuse in its
grooves.

"Now," said Josie, surveying her work with satisfaction, "if they light
that fuse, and expect it to explode the bomb in an hour or more,
they'll be badly fooled. Also, I shall have prevented another
catastrophe like the explosion at the airplane factory."

She replaced the bomb in its bag, placed the bag in the black satchel,
tucked in the soiled shirts to cover it and with her improvised key
managed to relock the satchel. Watching for a time when the corridor
was vacant, she went to 45, entered the room and replaced the satchel
on its shelf, taking care to arrange the newspaper before it as a mask.

She had taken the chair from the closet and was about to leave the room
when she heard footsteps coming down the hallway, accompanied by a
whistle which she promptly recognized.

"Caught!" she exclaimed, and gave a hurried glance around her. To hide
within the room was impossible, but the window was open and the iron
fire-escape within easy reach. In an instant she had mounted it and
seizing the rounds of the iron ladder climbed upward until she had
nearly reached the next window directly above, on the third floor. Then
she paused, clinging, to get her breath.

Kauffman was annoyed to find the door of his room unlocked. He paused a
moment in the middle of the room and looked around him. "Confound that
chambermaid!" Josie heard him mutter, and then he opened the closet
door and looked in. Apparently reassured, he approached the open
window, stuck out his head and looked _down_ the fire-escape. Josie's
heart gave a bound; but Kauffman didn't look upward. He drew in his
head, resumed his whistling and busied himself repacking the sample
suspenders in his suitcase.

Josie hoped he would soon go out again, but he seemed to have no
intention of doing so. So she climbed her ladder until she could look
into the window above, which was also open. The old lady she