"
"But isn't it dangerous?" I asked, amazed at the skill with which
he handled the blowpipe.
"Not particularly--when you know how to do it. In that tank is a
porous asbestos packing saturated with acetone, under pressure.
Thus I can carry acetylene safely, for it is dissolved, and the
possibility of explosion is minimised. This mixing chamber by
which I am holding the torch, where the oxygen and acetylene mix,
is also designed in such a way as to prevent a flash-back. The
best thing about this style of blowpipe is the ease with which it
can be transported and the curious uses--like the present--to
which it can be put."
He paused a moment to test the door. All was silence on the other
side. The door itself was as firm as ever.
"Huh!" exclaimed one of the detectives behind me, "these
new-fangled things ain't all they're cracked up to be. Now if I
was runnin' this show, I'd dynamite that door to kingdom come."
"And wreck the house and kill a few people," I returned, hotly
resenting the criticism of Kennedy. Kennedy affected not to hear.
"When I shut off the oxygen in this second jet," he resumed as if
nothing had been said, "you see the torch merely heats the steel.
I can get a heat of approximately sixty-three hundred degrees
Fahrenheit, and the flame will exert a pressure of fifty pounds
to the square inch.
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