L. Frank Baum

“ She now set off at her swiftest run and on reaching the manager's office, in the front of the main building, perceived that it was lighted.
Josie rapped upon the door and it was opened by one-armed Joe Langley, the night watchman.
"Quick!" she said, "let me in and hide me somewhere, where I can't be seen."
Joe pulled her in, closed the outer door and locked it, and then faced her.
"What's up?" he demanded.
"There's a man coming here with a bomb in a black satchel," she panted. "He intends to blow up this building, in which all the shells axe stored. ”

“ Josie lowered the revolver. Her face was red. She was beginning to wonder if she had bungled the case. A second thought, however—a thought of the papers she had found in the old desk—reassured her. She might have been wrong in some respects, but surely she was right in the main.
"This man," said Mr. Colton, pointing to Kauffman, "is known to me as a munition expert. He bears the endorsement of the Secretary of War and is the inventor of the most effective shells we now manufacture. What you have mistaken for a bomb is his latest design of projectile for an eight-inch gun. ”

“ Kauffman turned to the manager.
"Will you please order your man to get the projectile?" he asked. "It is lucky for us all that the thing isn't loaded, or there really would have been an explosion." He now turned to Josie, with his hands still in the air, and explained: "It is meant to explode through impact, and ordering it tossed out there was the most dangerous thing you could have done."
At the manager's command Joe took an electric searchlight and went out to find the steel ball. ”