The small carton was sealed with tape. In the kitchen Wolfe put it on the long table, reached to the rack for a knife, cut the tape, and pulled the flaps up.

My reflexes are quick, and the instant the hissing noise started I grabbed

Wolfe's arm to haul him back, yelling at Fritz, “Watch out! Drop!

Wolfe can move all right, considering what he has to move. He and I were through the open door into the hall before the explosion came, and Fritz came bounding after, pulling the door with him. We all kept going, along the short stretch of hall to the office door, and into the office.

There we stopped dead. No explosion yet.

“It's still hissing, I said, and moved.

“Come back here! Wolfe commanded.

“Be quiet, I commanded back, and dropped to my hands and knees and made it into the hall. There I stopped to sniff, crawled to within a yard of the crack under the kitchen door, and sniffed again.

I arose, returned to the office on my feet, and told them, “Gas. Tear gas, I think. The hissing has stopped.

Wolfe snorted.

“No sausage, Fritz said grimly.

“If it had been a trigger job on a grenade, I told him, 'there would have been plenty of sausage. Not for us, of us. Now it's merely a damn' nuisance. You'd better sit here and chat a while.

I marched to the hall and shut the door behind me, went and opened the front door wide, came back and stood at the kitchen door and took a full breath, opened the door, raced through and opened the back door into the courtyard, and ran back again to the front. Even there the air current was too gassy for comfort, so I moved out to the stoop. I had been there only a moment when I heard my name called.