[Illustration]
ABOVE the stalls in Dr. Hartel’s stable were three rooms, in one of
which a coach-man used to sleep in the days when the place had been used
by Judge Solling. The two other rooms were only partly finished. In one
of these was a sink with running water, which had long been marked in
Allan’s fancy as the focal point of the dark-room.
“We can’t fix anything here to-night,” said Owen.
“Of course not,” admitted Allan.
Owen had carried over two trays, “one for developing and the other for
fixing,” and at his suggestion Allan procured an “agate iron” tray from
the kitchen to wash the plates in. “Mind you fetch it back!” said Nora.
“Is it dark enough here?” asked Allan, turning to the back windows.
“Yes,” answered Owen; “but in the daytime you would have to cover up the
windows in some way, and keep the daylight in the front rooms from
getting in around these doors.”
Meanwhile Owen, in the red light of his lamp, was fussing with two
bottles, a proceeding which excited the greatest interest on the part of
the two other boys. Allan often had seen his father make chemical
experiments, and he had seen Owen develop once before; but he was not a
photographer then, and had not watched each motion with the same feeling
of concern and anticipation.
“I forgot my graduate,” Owen complained.
“Shall I get one of father’s?” asked Allan.
“No, I can guess the amount pretty well in this old glass.”
Owen poured from each of his bottles, and then added water from the tap,
inspected the trays critically, and turned the flame of the lamp a
little lower. “Now,” he said, “we are all ready.”
“Ship ahoy!” came a voice from the stable stairs. It was the Doctor.
“Can’t we come?” That was Edith.
“Yes, yes! Come right up!” shouted Allan, running to the head of the
stairs to pilot the newcomers, “though I don’t know where you are going
to sit—we haven’t any chairs.”
“Oh, we shan’t mind that!” said the Doctor.
“We are just ready,” said Owen.
Allan thought it was good of Owen to say “we,” for he himself had taken
but small part in the important preparations.
“I hope this won’t make you nervous, Owen,” the Doctor said. “I don’t
know that I should want to perform an operation with so many onlookers.”
“I may not do the right thing,” Owen confessed; “but I only know how to
do the one thing, anyway, and that is to pour on the developer and let
the thing go.”
The Doctor laughed quietly. “I see,” he said, “you administer the
medicine and let nature do the rest. After all, that is the about the
most any of us can do.”
“Now,” asked Allan, “do you want one of the plates?” He had been
standing with the plate-holders in his hand.
“Yes,” Owen answered, “we’re all ready.”
They opened a holder and took out one of the plates. Owen placed the
plate in one of the trays, poured his developing mixture over it, and
began gently to rock the tray, the spectators crowding about him in a
semicircle.
“Of course,” said Owen, “it may be a long time coming up.” Presently he
added, “It may be very much under-exposed, you know.”
At the end of five minutes the plate remained obstinately free from any
sign of an image.
“I don’t see a thing,” said Edith.
“But, Edith!” expostulated Allan, “it sometimes takes a long while.”
“I think I have done the thing right,” murmured Owen, in perplexity.
Then he suddenly turned to Allan. “Say, which one of the plates is
this?”
Allan’s face took on a queer look in the red light. “I don’t know,” he
answered blankly. It had not occurred to him before. “I know we didn’t
double any.”
“I hope not,” Owen interposed anxiously.
“But I forgot to turn the holder-slides over to show which had been
exposed.”
“Well,” said Owen, “we’ll have to try them until we find the three
exposed ones. You had the four holders in the box?”
“Yes,” asserted Allan, “eight plates.”
At the end of another five minutes, Owen said, “I’m sure this can’t be
one of the exposed plates,” and, with a last flip of the developer, he
took the plate out and placed it on the shelf over the sink.
“And can’t you use it again?” asked Edith, sympathetically.
Owen shook his head. “No. _That_ one’s done for. Now,” he added, “let us
try one of the others.”
“I’m sure this is one,” said Allan, repentantly. He felt as if he had
made a bad blunder on his first photographic expedition. “I remember now
which way I carried the holders,” and he handed Owen another plate.
The semicircle of faces drew about Owen’s shoulders again. It seemed a
long while to wait, while Owen rocked the tray affectionately, as if it
were a cradle, and Allan’s spirits had begun to fall, when McConnell
cried, “There’s something!”
“It’s just a spot on the plate,” said Edith.
Owen shook the tray as if to dislodge something from the plate. “Why,
there are several of them!” he cried. “They must be the windows of the
factory!”
“Hooray!” shouted McConnell.
“Black windows?” asked Edith, perplexed.
“It is the fire,” said the doctor. “Light objects make a black image on
the plate. That is why they can print from the negative. Daguerre made a
positive—a natural image—on a metal plate which could not be duplicated.
That was a daguerreotype. The English inventor of photography made
negatives first on paper and then on glass. These could be used for
making any number of positives or prints.”
“I see,” said Edith, her eyes on the plate. “Is anything more coming,
Owen?”
“Yes,” said McConnell, “more little spots, and they are getting blacker.
I think I see some flames shooting up.”
But Owen did not seem very sanguine. “It doesn’t seem to come out very
well,” he mused. “I guess this one is the snap-shot.”
“Then there will be more on the two others!” cried Allan, hopefully.
They all were greatly interested to think that the other plates might
have more on them. Owen’s guess proved quite correct. The other plates
from the same holder came up in a much shorter time.
“Why, yes!” Edith exclaimed. “You can see the window-sash plainly, and
the fire is spreading in this one.”
“You are right, Edith,” said the Doctor. “There are flames in several
more of the windows here than in the other plates. And I can see faint
outlines of the building here and there—and what looks like a stream of
water, lighted up by the fire, in another place.”
“And so we have something after all!” Allan said, jubilantly.
The third plate displayed the fire at its worst, when the flames broke
through the roof, and they were all watching the growth of the image
under the soft swish of the developer when a sharp rap sounded on the
stable door at the foot of the stairs.
“A call, uncle,” said Edith, resentfully. “They always want you when we
want you, don’t they?”
The Doctor went to the door, and he could be heard talking in a low tone
for some moments. Then he said, “Good night!” and came up again quickly.
“Didn’t you have to go?” asked Edith.
“Here’s something extraordinary, Allan!” the Doctor exclaimed; “the
factory company wants your negatives!”
“My negatives!” Allan looked amazed.
“The fire pictures?” asked McConnell, staring at the Doctor.
“Yes. The superintendent has just told me that there is a possibility
that the fire was started by an incendiary. But there is another
question—in fact, they are both bound up together. It appears that those
cans we saw them taking out contained naphtha, and that the naphtha was
there without special permission from the insurance people. But the
factory people say the fire started at some distance from the naphtha,
and they have the evidence of eye-witnesses that it did start there.
Moreover, they rescued every can containing naphtha. The cans were
untouched and intact. Yet there will be a controversy, and the factory
people, having heard that photographs of the fire were taken, the
superintendent thinks they might be first-class corroborative evidence
that the fire started on the east side of the wing, the side opposite
the storage place of the naphtha,—would head off any trouble with the
insurance people.”
“Well, well!” was all Allan could say.
[Illustration:
“It was the superintendent.”
]
“It did start on the east side,” declared Edith. “We all saw it.”
“And the camera saw it,” added McConnell, with great conviction.
Owen’s hands were trembling a little. “I mustn’t drop this now,” he
muttered.
Then there was a rattle at the door below, and a step on the stair.
As the Doctor started forward again a man’s head appeared above the
stair rail. It was the superintendent. His eyes blinked in an
unaccustomed light. For a moment he did not seem to be able to make out
the situation.
“I say, Doctor,” said the superintendent. “I’d like to be able to say to
our president that we have secured these negatives. I’ll send you a
check for fifty dollars if you’ll say they’re ours.”
“What do you say, Allan?” asked the Doctor, turning about.
Had it not been for the red light Allan probably would have looked very
white in the face.
“I suppose they can have them?” said the Doctor when Allan did not seem
to find words. “You will be glad that they can be so useful, and—how
much did you say, Mr. Superintendent?” the Doctor went on, with an
enjoyment of Allan’s agreeable stupefaction.
“Fifty dollars,” repeated the superintendent. “They’ll be worth that to
the company. Anyway, I’ll risk making that offer. And I want the thing
understood. Is it a go?”
“Oh, you can have them!” Allan said. And the superintendent repeated his
“Good night!” shuffled his way cautiously down the dark stairs and was
gone.
No one said a word until the superintendent closed the door below.
“Fifty dollars!” was all Allan said.
“I hope they come out well,” said Owen, fervently.
“I wish I could help,” murmured Edith.
“I think that Dr. Owen is doing the best that could be done with the
patients,” laughed Dr. Hartel.
Then McConnell spoke up. “Gee whiz, Allan, you can buy a folding
cartridge camera now!”
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