“To do what?—put chemicals on the bed-spread?”
“No, no!” expostulated Allan, at the door of his room,—“I mean to use the chemicals.”
They cleared a little table in Allan’s room and placed the lamp in the centre of it, with the yellow paper shield in position. A soft, yellowish light filled the room and made the three faces look strangely unusual.
“This makes me think of a conspiracy,” said Allan.
“Or three robbers in a cave,” said McConnell.
“Now, you understand, boys, that I don’t really know very much about photography,” said the Doctor. “When I was studying medicine I had a room-mate who was a photographic crank, and I once saw him do something of this sort, though he used a small stable lantern with a red bandanna handkerchief tied about it. This ought to be much safer, and it needs to be, for plates are much more sensitive, even to red and yellow light, than they used to be. I suppose that some day they will make photographic plates so sensitive that we shall have to develop them absolutely in the dark.”
“That would be harder than loading them in the dark, wouldn’t it?”
“Decidedly harder. Now, boys, let us get out the plates. Probably I shall do something that I shouldn’t do, and you will learn afterward not to do it. But I am better than no help at all, am I not?” the Doctor added laughingly.
“Yes, indeed!” Allan admitted.
The Doctor had used the point of his knife in cutting through the paper in the bottom of the box. Then they found that the plates were hidden in three boxes, one within the other.