In his enthusiasm over his views he forgot, for the time being, the matter that was troubling him. He found that he had a number of excellent negatives of the waterspout, showing it approaching, its destruction, and the raging sea after it had subsided into the waves.
“Good! That’s great!” exclaimed Mr. Blake, one of the passengers to whom Tom showed his views a few hours later. “I hope mine come out as fine as yours. How did you print them so quickly?”
Tom explained how he had dried his negatives by dipping them in alcohol, and pinning them in front of an electric fan, so that he could make prints a comparatively short time after developing. He even used the dark room for some of the other passengers, making some prints from their films, but none of them were as good as those of our hero.
“You ought to make a set for the captain,” suggested Mr. Blake. “I believe he’d like them to hang in his cabin, as a souvenir of the occasion.”
“I will,” declared Tom, and this brought up anew in his mind the question as to whether or not he ought to inform the commander of the secret he had unexpectedly stumbled upon.
“I guess I’ll take a chance, and tell him,” mused the lad. “I’ve thought it all over, and I’ll feel better if I tell. If I don’t, and anything happens, I’d feel as if I was to blame. I’ll tell Captain Steerit.”
But an unexpected obstacle developed. First, when Tom went to look for the captain the latter was working out some reckonings, and could not be disturbed. And then, a little later, it was time for supper, and a concert was to be given afterward, the captain having arranged for it among the musical members of his passengers. He was really too busy for Tom to see him in private.
“Oh, well, morning will do,” decided our hero, little knowing what was to happen between night and dawn.
The concert was a great success, though it was strictly amateur. There were songs and instrumental numbers, for the Silver Star carried a piano. Some one discovered that Tom was a school lad, who had been a member of the glee club at Elmwood Hall, and nothing would do but that he must sing some songs. He did not want to, but was finally prevailed upon to do so, and he had a better voice than he himself suspected.