A Moment Of Suspense

Last evening, just as the erowd of people were pouring out of the post office after getting tlieir evening mail, a couple of young lads marched into the middle of the street between the postoffice and the opera house corners and planted a huge cannon fire cracker. It was an immense affair, big enough to break all the windows in the buildings round about, and the people quickly moved back to a respect ful distance without asking any questions. The boy who planted the terrible exploderlighted a fuse, and it was rapidly sissing its way along when he ran away from it. Horses were stopped and not allowed to approach near the terrible bomb, and the people all set their teeth firmly and braced their nerves for the mighty shock. The fuse got shorter and shorter, and finally gave one short puff like a firecracker before the explosión takes place. But it didn't explode. It smoked and smouldered a little, when a boy ran up to it and look in as boys are apt to do, to see what was the matter, while the people all around were horrified, and yelled at him to "keep back," "it will blow you all to pieces," etc. He looked at the crowd a minute, then grabbed the cracker and ran away, much to the astonishment of the hundreds who had looked on in terror. The truth leaked out afterward that the boys had taken a lot of old newspapers, rolled them up and taking a sheet of red paper had constructed au exact imitation of a mammoth fire cracker. They made a fuse by rolling some powder in a strip of tissue paper and the sell was complete. Some of the people have not got over slmddering yet.