“Yes, that’s it, tripod. I wonder why it isn’t triped,” mused McConnell, as they continued their walk toward Allan’s house. “We say biped and quadruped for two legs and four legs.”
“McConnell and Allan had been chums for a long time.”
Allan could not explain; and he was thinking about the camera. “Don’t you want to help me fix up a dark-room out in the stable?”
“That’s just what I do want,” exclaimed McConnell. “I want to learn the ropes. You see, I think that when Bill hears about your having a camera he’ll help me to get one somehow. It seems to me,” McConnell continued enthusiastically, “I’d almost swap my wheel for one!”
Allan was thinking about the dark-room. “Jo Bassett has his in the kitchen. I mean he develops there at night, and Owen has his in the attic. I wanted father to let me have the little place by his office, you know, where all the bottles are, but he said, No, sir! I’d have to doctor my plates where he wasn’t doctoring his patients, for he didn’t want either the plates or the patients to get the wrong doses.”
The boys laughed.
“Is the stuff dangerous that they put on the plates?” asked McConnell.
“I guess not,” answered Allan, “unless you drink it. Father says there are two sides to a person, the inside and the outside, and he says we mustn’t use things on the wrong side. He’s going to help me about the bottles.”
“But you must take the pictures first,” said McConnell. He was impatient to see the camera, and to have it aimed at something. “Couldn’t we—couldn’t you take something to-day?”