“Oh,” laughed Owen, “you only would have said mean things about the man who wrote the directions! But you’re not through yet! There are more chances for making mistakes in photography than in anything I know of.”
After running into the house to show the wet prints (on a piece of blotting paper) to his mother and Edith, Allan set to work on the dark-room. McConnell helped for most of the day, whistling loudly while he worked, and telling Allan a story he had read about a pirate who got shipwrecked.
Before supper-time the dark-room began to look like a real photographer’s den. With an arrangement which he had made for the window, and the strips of cloth around the door, Allan could have the room absolutely dark in the brightest daylight. There already was a long shelf in the room, and an old chest of drawers. After planning a place for everything, Allan made strong resolutions to keep everything in the places he had chosen for them. And he felt much pleased at the way his packages and bottles looked when spread out on the shelf. He scarcely could wait for his father to come in and survey the outfit.
“You have done very well, Allan,” said the Doctor, “but you must keep this up; especially, you must keep everything clean, for you will be working in the dark in more senses than one if your bottles and graduates and trays are not clean. Rinse everything after using it, and before putting it away. When your plates act queerly you want to know where the trouble is,—whether in the plates, in the camera, in the time, or in the developer.”
Allan said he meant to be very careful, and he put some of his plans into practice when he developed the picture of Artie on the bicycle.
“I tell you, McConnell,” said Allan, as his companion was going home, “when you get your camera, we can use this dark-room together.”
“Well,” said McConnell, pleased at being made a partner in so interesting an institution as the dark room, “then I think I ought to chip in some trays and things for myself; don’t you think so, Allan?”
“All right!” laughed Allan. “One tray and a plate-lifter.”
It was that evening, a little after nine o’clock, when Allan and Edith were studying and discussing the fire pictures, that the factory superintendent came to the door. Mrs. Hartel ushered him into the room.
“Are the plates ready?” he asked. “I couldn’t get over any sooner.”