Lieutenant Wilde stroked his silky moustache and bit his lip thoughtfully.
“I don’t quite like it, Campbell,” he said; “and I am very glad you spoke of it. I’ll try to get a word with Max before long, and see if I can’t break it up.”
“Oh, don’t!” exclaimed Stanley hastily.
“Don’t you be afraid, I won’t say anything about you. I only want to caution him, as I have all of you, over and over again, to be careful in choosing his friends. Max is a magnificent fellow and would never mean to go wrong; but he is so fond of fun that he loses his head a little sometimes, and I will just put him on his guard, that’s all.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Lieutenant Wilde said, with one of his frank, boyish laughs, as he put on his glasses and leaned forward to survey the compound before him,—
“Do you know, Stanley, that I make myself think now and then of a Japanese juggler with his balls, when he is throwing them up by turns, to keep them all in the air. It’s just about the way I have to do with you boys, first one of you, then another, to keep you going the way I want you to. It would be ever so much easier for me, if I didn’t care about you and just let you go on in your own way; but I hate to see you go wrong, so I have to put in my word occasionally. Perhaps we’re all the better friends for it, though, and—I’ll see if I can’t give Max a little start, to set him straight once more. Now,” he went on, “I must see to this. Will you just hand me the largest flask you can find in that closet over there?”
Stanley slid down from his high stool and went across to the closet, while Lieutenant Wilde hastily pushed aside the low gas-burner, with its flaring jet of colorless flame. The boy stood behind the half-open door, comparing two or three of the flasks before him, when he heard an ominous click and a short, sharp exclamation from Lieutenant Wilde. The next instant, the room echoed with a loud explosion which jarred the windows and doors in their casements, and set every flask and funnel to dancing on its shelf; there was a rush of suffocating vapor that filled the room and, catching fire where it was densest, blazed up in a dull blue flame about the desk. Then came that sickening sound, the thud of a heavily-falling body. For one moment, Stanley stood as if dazed by the report; but it was for only one. Then this boy who was counted as slow by his friends, returned to his senses and, only conscious that some accident had occurred and that there was need of prompt action, turned to see Lieutenant Wilde lying senseless on the floor, below the desk which appeared to be enveloped in a mass of flame. It was but the work of an instant to leap forward, turn off the gas, then rush to the nearest window and throw it open with an unconscious force which shattered the glass; only an instant, but it showed the stuff of which the lad was made, and proved his ability to think and act quickly in an emergency that would have paralyzed many an older person. From window to window he hurried, throwing them wide open to let in the cool outer air, then back to his teacher’s side, where he stooped to look at him closely and steadily, though his heart sickened at the sight.
Lieutenant Wilde lay in the same cramped position in which he had dropped when the rush of gas had stifled him; his eyebrows and moustache were burned half off, and his face was cut here and there with the bits of flying glass. For a minute, the boy’s courage failed, but he quickly nerved himself again, when he remembered that they were alone in the building and that immediate aid must be summoned. No calling would do, for the boys were all inside the house, and the noise of the storm would drown the sound of his voice. But, on the other hand, dared he leave Lieutenant Wilde? He might then be dying, or even dead. Desperately he tore off his coat, rolled it into a sort of pillow and arranged it under the young man’s head. Then he rushed away, bareheaded and in his shirt sleeves, through the cold, drizzling rain, down to the doctor’s house.
The doctor met him on the steps, for he had heard the explosion, and, seeing him coming in this strange plight, he at once imagined some serious trouble, an impression increased at sight of the boy’s drawn, ash-colored face.
“Come quick—to the laboratory—Lieutenant Wilde!” panted Stanley breathlessly.