edged as the blades in the box beneath
it. "Oh-h, yes! she's at daggers dr-rawn
with us now--on her high ropes all the
time, as you'd say. And--and she
sneers at your inventions, father! She
calls the rocket, the rocket," half-hysterically,
"the moon-reaching rocket,--a
Quaker gun--a Quaker gun that'll never
be fired, never go off--never hit anything!...
&Oh-h!^"

With her hand to her green breast at
the insult, the girl bounded, blindly as a
ball, from her box, across the laboratory--and
on to a low platform.

Through her raging young body there
shot like a physical cramp the knowledge
that Quakers, noble-hearted Friends, did
not use any guns; that the mocking term
was but a by-word, a jesting synonym
for all that was impotent--non-existent
in reason and power--a dummy.

Savagely she applied her eye to the tall,
ten-foot spectroscope rearing its brazen
height from this low pedestal.

[[15]]

p014 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p015w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p016

v?