THE SHOOTING MATCH
SATURDAYS Roger usually had to himself. On these days he took advantage
of his freedom to visit the library or a museum, or strolled about the
city, entertaining himself with the shop windows and the mob of
bargain-hunters. Occasionally he hunted up some landmark of history
which appealed to his interest, turning aside on the way for a glimpse
of the waterside or the markets or the queer foreign quarter where the
native-born American feels himself a trespasser and is grateful for the
presence of a policeman a block away. As he was new to the fascinating
variety of city scenes, his attention was often caught by objects which
his town-bred companions passed without noticing, either because they
lacked curiosity, or because familiarity with city streets had made them
indifferent.
On two or three occasions, while traversing an irregular old square,
Roger had noticed a second-story sign bearing the words: “Professor
Pillar, Magicians’ Supplies and Novelties. Outfits for Professionals and
Amateurs. Come In and See Us.” One morning in February he decided to
accept this invitation. He found himself in a little dusty room packed
full of juggler’s paraphernalia. A friendly old man with very nimble
fingers greeted him warmly, and pressed upon him various tricks and
trinkets with such persuasiveness that Roger left the wizard’s cave
poorer by a dollar and a half, and richer by a variety of queer
acquisitions.
When he reached his room, he spread out his purchases on the desk before
him and assured himself with some heat that it was unquestionably true
that a fool and his money are soon parted. While he was thus making
himself uncomfortable with reproaches, Mike happened in and became
enthusiastic over the collection.
“I’ll sell them to you,” offered Roger.
Mike considered. “How much?”
“Just what I gave for them.”
“You wouldn’t do that unless you wanted to get rid of ’em,” remarked
Mike, shrewdly. “I’ll give you a dollar for the lot.”
The haggling spun itself out to a length which would prove tedious to
the reader if the conversation were reported in detail. The upshot of it
all was that Roger reserved two articles from the collection, and sold
the balance to Mike for the sum which the latter had first offered.
“Now what are you going to do with them?” asked Roger, when the dollar
had been paid and the goods delivered.
“I’ll tell you,” returned Mike, proudly, “but you must keep it to
yourself and not bring in anything more to spoil the market. I’m going
to show one of ’em downstairs when there are a lot of kids around, and
then auction the thing off. After a few days I’ll bring out another and
auction that off, and so on, till they’re all gone. If I don’t make
fifty per cent on the trade, I’ll give you back your money.”
It took Mike three weeks, we may add in dismissing the incident, to
carry out his programme, but in the end he got back his dollar, together
with a clear profit of seventy-one cents.
Among the objects which had caught Roger’s eye at the juggler’s were
so-called “shooting matches,” which came in little boxes like those
which contain safety matches. In appearance they resembled cigar
lighters, with a smooth brown coating running up two-thirds of an inch
from the tip; in action their vigor was such as to fill the heart of a
non-possessor with envy. If you held one in your hand after the first
flare of ignition, you got a very pretty series of tiny explosions that
gave you a pleasant little thrill, and to the ignorant onlooker an
amusing little shock. If the ignorant onlooker could be beguiled to
strike one himself before he saw any of its fellows at work, he
furnished you pleasanter thrills by dropping his match in a panic at the
first pop and jumping about delightfully as it finished its performance
on the floor.
In his deal with Mike, Roger reserved two boxes of these fireworks,
meaning to exhibit them at the next afternoon gathering in Trask’s roof
chamber, where special cronies occasionally assembled on Trask’s
invitation and amused themselves with jokes and gossip. Here, if the
truth is to be told, some boys smoked a little,—as a rule smoking was
considered not the thing at Westcott’s,—and it would be a great joy to
offer the innocent brown-tipped object to the desperate character who
announced that he was going to try a pipe. On this occasion Wilmot was
one of the first to arrive and the first to be tricked; afterwards he
became a leader in entrapping the others. As smokers were few,
non-smokers had to be drawn on; they were beguiled with invitations to
light papers in the fireplace. Talbot, who appeared late and found a
circle of ten eager to see him light a match, became suspicious and
declined the privilege. “Light it yourself, if you want it lighted!” he
said grimly. “What’s the good of doing it, anyway?”
“Just for the fun,” pleaded Wilmot. “You needn’t be scared; it won’t
hurt you.”
“We all did it, and you’ve got to,” announced Trask. “If you don’t,
you’ll have to smoke a big cigar.”
“It’ll take more than this bunch to make me do that,” answered Pete,
looking round in smiling defiance. “I’m no cigarette sucker!”
“He’s trying to get out of it!” declared Wilmot, triumphantly. “A
football player and captain of the crew hasn’t the sand to light a piece
of paper!”
“He’s just contrary-minded, that’s all,” Sumner threw in. “He won’t do
it because we want him to.”
“Oh, if you want me to, that’s different,” answered Pete. “Anything to
oblige such dear friends. Only I won’t take Steve’s match; he’s too
forward. Here, Roger, give me one. I’ll trust you.”
Roger drew out his second box, took a match from it, and handed both to
Talbot. Pete stooped to perform the task expected of him, read the
inscription on the box, and decided instantly on the course to be
pursued. At the first explosion he whirled about with the sputtering
thing in his hand and plunged toward Wilmot, who sprang away from him
with a yell of fright.
“Aha!” cried Talbot, dramatically, as he threw the spent match into the
fireplace, “who’s the sandless one now? He’s afraid of his own innocent
little matches!”
“They aren’t mine,” replied Wilmot, a little rattled by the fact that
the laugh had turned against him. “They belong to Hardie, and he won’t
tell where he got ’em.” This last statement was added in the hope that
it might lead the conversation away from his own discomfiture. “Did you
ever know such a hog?”
“Let him discover the place himself, as I did,” protested Roger. “He’s
lived in the city all his life.”
“Don’t tell him,” advised Talbot. “He’s better off without ’em.”
And then the whole company fell to questioning Roger, as in a game,
concerning the kind of shop at which the matches were procured. He
answered all questions truthfully, though insulting doubts as to his
honesty were cried aloud before the end of the list was reached, a list
which began with possibilities such as groceries, drug stores, cigar
stands, news stands, street fakirs, toy-shops; proceeded with dealers in
firearms, fireworks, sporting goods—and tailed out into the most
idiotic suggestions that foolish brains could originate. Wilmot capped
the climax by declaring that it was from a school-supply house that the
matches came. “They’re for use in school,” he shouted with glee; “that’s
what they’re for!”
Hardie laughed and shook his head.
Then Wilmot started on a new course, and pleaded for a few out of the
new box.
“You’ve got a whole boxful, and I’ve only one left,” he urged. “Go
halves, and I won’t call you a hog any more.”
But Hardie was still obdurate. “Children shouldn’t have matches,” he
said.
Wilmot turned away in disgust. “You’re worse than a hog, you’re a whole
drove of swine! I wouldn’t look over the edge of the sty at you!”
The next morning Roger relented. He didn’t feel at all sure that Wilmot
was to be trusted with tools of such potential power for disturbance;
but like all right-minded boys, he hated to be considered stingy. He
hunted up Wilmot as soon as he reached school the next morning and
reopened the case.
“Do you still want those things, Steve?” he asked.
“Sure I do,” answered Wilmot, promptly. “I think you might at least tell
me where you got ’em.”
“Well, you can have my box. Only you must be careful with them.”
Wilmot pocketed the box with alacrity. “I’ll be careful, all right. You
don’t suppose I’d set the building on fire, do you?”
“No, not that! You don’t have to do that to get into trouble.”
“You needn’t worry. I’m not looking for trouble.”
Wilmot never was looking for trouble; he had no need to do so, as it had
a habit of coming to him unsought. The caution, too, which he had
promised to exercise, was rather of a wily than a practical character,
as was demonstrated by his conduct when he reached the laboratory that
morning. Six or eight fellows were already there waiting for the new
experiment to be announced; Mr. Cary was still on the stairs; and
Redfield and a few others had gone down for books.
“I’ve got Hardie’s matches!” Wilmot called eagerly to the waiting
audience, “and I’m going to put ’em in the back part of my drawer. If
any fellow should happen to take one out, break off the end, and put it
into Reddy’s sand bath, why, I shouldn’t know anything about it. See?”
“None of it for me,” remarked Trask. “I’m not going to run my head into
any noose.”
“You haven’t the nerve,” said Wilmot.
“Neither have you, or you’d do it yourself!”
Mr. Cary now appeared with the laggards, and the class was soon set to
work. On one boy Wilmot’s short address made a deeper impression than
the directions of the teacher. Dunn had long been casting about for some
easy means of raising himself in the popular esteem. While he felt no
doubt that his true worth must appear as soon as the baseball season
began, he was unwilling that this recognition should be postponed to so
late a day if he could achieve it earlier. Here was an opportunity to
take a long step forward by accepting the general challenge which Wilmot
had issued, and proving himself a bold fellow when Trask had
acknowledged that he did not dare and Wilmot himself hung back.
A sand bath, as most of my readers know, is a bowl-shaped vessel filled
with sand in which fragile glass flasks are placed in order to insure an
even heat. A bunsen burner under the sand bath heats the sand, and,
through the sand, the flask and its contents. Redfield had just lighted
his burner and was busy weighing out his chemicals. Dunn passed behind
him, and directing his attention to something across the room, tucked a
match-end into the sand in Redfield’s bath and went on to his own table.
Scarcely three minutes had elapsed when the half-dozen lads who had been
watching furtively over their work heard a slight explosion, followed
immediately by an exclamation from Redfield, who went crashing back on
the row of tables behind. At the same time they beheld a small geyser of
popping sand spurt into the air and descend in a shower about the
burner.
Mr. Cary rushed to the spot, likewise all the boys, both those who were
in the secret and those who were not. “Go back to your work!” ordered
the teacher, and the boys slunk away, though not beyond earshot. “What’s
this, Redfield?” he asked sharply.
The victim of the explosion, having recovered from his fright, stood
giggling with nervousness. “My sand blew up, sir,” he said.
“Do you know what made it do so?” demanded Mr. Cary, sternly.
“No, sir. I was standing right here waiting for the thing to heat. It
went off all of a sudden, right up in the air, and kept snappin’ all the
way up.”
“And you know absolutely nothing more about it?”
“Not a thing!” answered Redfield, with evident honesty. “I wouldn’t blow
myself up if I could help it.”
There seemed no reason to doubt the truth of Redfield’s statements; he
was not only incapable of skilful dissembling, but also, as was
generally known, a favorite target for heartless schoolboy pleasantry.
Mr. Cary, therefore, asked no further questions, but turned off the gas
from the burner, and dumping out the smoking sand poked it over in
search of clews to the explosion—to the great delight of the half-dozen
unworthies who were in the secret. Finding nothing, he bade Redfield
start again with fresh sand, and returned to his desk.
A half-hour later Fluffy Dobbs’s mess blew up in the same way. This time
the instructor, being hardly a dozen feet away, caught the full effect.
He came directly to the smoking bath, but though his face blazed with
indignation, he was too wise to embark on an interrogation which was
unlikely to yield positive results.
“Don’t you think something is the matter with the sand, sir?” asked
Wilmot, innocently. “Perhaps there’s nitre in it.”
“It isn’t likely.”
“Can this have anything to do with it?” suggested Wilmot, offering a
charred bit of wood which he had picked up from the floor. The
instructor took it, smelled of it, and shook his head. “I don’t know,”
he said. “If these explosions are due to the sand, it is a remarkable
occurrence. If they were deliberately caused, it is a very dangerous and
culpable form of joke. We shall take only one experiment to-day. As soon
as you have finished with that, you may go.”
Mr. Cary stood close to Wilmot’s desk during the rest of the exercise,
either because it was in a central position or because he saw in the
disturbance the fine Italian hand of that young gentleman. One awkward
result for Wilmot was that, not daring to take the match-box from his
drawer in the presence of the teacher, he was obliged to leave it behind
when he went. Dunn, too, made a misplay. He had used two of the three
matches taken from Wilmot’s box on Redfield and Dobbs; not knowing what
to do with the third, he broke off the end and poked it into the bag of
fresh sand which stood at the end of his table.
The first thing Mr. Cary did after the boys had left the laboratory was
to examine the sand in the bag. At the very top, like Benjamin’s cup
hidden in the mouth of the sack, he found the match-end which Dunn had
placed there. He compared this with the charred piece picked up by
Wilmot. Over these he mused a few minutes; then, with the instinct which
sends the police, after an important break, to the haunts of certain
well-known criminals, he went straight to Wilmot’s drawer. There, under
the soiled laboratory coat, he discovered the fatal box. He broke off a
match-head, put it into a sand bath, and in five minutes had an
explosion of his own. After that he gathered up his exhibits and hied
him to Mr. Westcott’s office.
The laboratory excitement furnished a topic of deep interest to certain
groups during the lunch hour. Dunn, who was sure that he had made a hit,
talked largely of his achievement. Wilmot, though pleased with the
unexpectedly full success of his idea, was a little worried that he had
been forced to leave his treasure in the laboratory. It wouldn’t do to
use the thing too often, and Dunn was capable of firing off all the
precious matches in a day. By the end of recess, largely through Dunn’s
enthusiastic narratives, the incident had been aired among the older
boys. Towards two o’clock word came to Wilmot that he was wanted in the
head-master’s office.
What happened in the half-hour during which Wilmot was closeted with Mr.
Westcott was never fully known to the boys. Steve spoke of it very
unwillingly, and his memory of such scenes was never good. The instant
he saw the fatal box of shooting matches on the table before him, he
knew that it was all up with him, and his only course was to obtain the
best terms of surrender possible. The terms were hard. He was suspended
from school for a week. His parents were to be notified; he was to make
up all lost lessons at home with a tutor; the school was to be informed
of the misdeed and the penalty; he was not to return to the chemistry
class unless Mr. Cary expressed a desire to give him another trial.
Against the suspension Steve pleaded piteously; he would copy thousands
of lines, stay after school hours every day, apologize to anybody and
everybody,—if only the message didn’t go home. But Mr. Westcott was
inexorable; the letter was posted that very afternoon.
The next day was a bitter one for Steve Wilmot. Immediately after
breakfast his mother retired to the privacy of her chamber to weep; his
father paced the library for some time before he could calm himself
sufficiently to give the boy a hearing. It was not the first occasion on
which Steve had brought unhappiness upon his family. From the day when
he began to walk he had been blundering into scrapes. He had been dealt
with by all recognized methods of discipline. Severe punishment,
denunciation, threats, gentle remonstrance, pleading, exhortation, loss
of allowance—none had prevailed to change his nature. A psychological
expert had once declared that since Steve’s escapades were mere boyish
tricks without malice, they would be outgrown in time. The hope born of
this assurance had carried the parents over such shocks as the visit of
policemen to warn against trespassing in the public garden, or an
indignant letter from a good lady whose cat Steve had snowballed as the
dear animal was taking an innocent walk on the alley fence. Now it
appeared that their hope had been a delusion, for suspension from school
was a humiliation which the family had hitherto been spared. Mr. Wilmot
talked gravely about putting the young man to work, but he didn’t mean
it. In the end, he accepted Steve’s promise that he would walk
circumspectly hereafter all the days of his life. Mrs. Wilmot also found
comfort in the reflection that Steve was at bottom neither dishonest nor
vicious, and that the salutary effect of the lesson might be expected to
outlast the four remaining months of his school career. After all, he
might have done worse things than carry shooting matches into a school
laboratory. So she dried her tears and hoped again.
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