Shot With Crimson

George Barr McCutcheon was an American popular novelist and playwright: FOR thirty seconds no one moved.An odd sort of paralysis seemed to have gripped every one in the room,—paralysis of the mind as well as of the body.Then puzzled, wondering looks were exchanged.A man sitting near the fireplace glanced sharply, apprehensively at the huge beams in the ceiling and muttered:"What was it! Sounded as though something had smashed in the roof. There''s a tremendous wind. It may have got that big tree at the corner of the locker room.""It couldn''t have been thunder,—not at this time of the year," said one of the women, sending a nervous, frightened look at her husband who sprawled ungracefully in a big Morris chair at the end of a table littered with newspapers and magazines."''Gad, did you feel the house rock?" exclaimed he, sitting up suddenly, his eyes narrowing as with pain. "Like an earthquake."It couldn''t have been an earthquake," interrupted his wife, starting up from her chair."Why couldn''t it?" he demanded crossly, and then glanced around at the other occupants of the room,—ten or a dozen men and women seated in a wide semi-circle in front of the huge logs blazing in the fireplace. "What do you think it was, Zimmie?""We''ll find part or all of the roof gone," answered the man addressed. As he spoke, he rose quickly and started across the room in the direction of the door leading to the steward''s pantry. "I''ll have a look from the back of the—"He stopped short. The dull, ripping crash that had startled them was repeated, this time a little louder and more prolonged than before. The club-house shook. Several of the men sprang to their feet in alarm. A look of comprehension shot among them."By Gad! An explosion!" cried one of them. "The damned beasts!""The Reynolds Works!" cried another, gripping the back of his chair with tense fingers. "Sure as you''re alive! It''s only a few miles from here. Nothing else could have—""Let''s go home, Ned.