“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.