Charteris took a seat, and faced this difficulty in all its aspects. The idea had never occurred to him before. And yet it should have been obvious.
'I'll have to copy the whole thing out in copper-plate,' he said desperately at last. 'My aunt, what a job.'
'I'll help,' said Tony. 'Welch will, too, I should think, if you ask him. How many jelly machine things can you raise?'
'I've got three. One for each of us. Wait a bit, I'll go and ask Welch.'
Welch, having first ascertained that the matter really was a pressing one, agreed without hesitation. He had objections to spoiling his sleep without reason, but in moments of emergency he put comfort behind him.
'Good,' said Charteris, when this had been settled, 'be here as soon as you can after eleven. I tell you what, we'll do the thing in style, and brew. It oughtn't to take more than an hour or so. It'll be rather a rag than otherwise.'
'And how about Jim's stuff?' asked Welch.
'I shall have to do that, as you can't. I've done my own bits. I think I'd better start now.' He did, and with success. When he went to bed at half-past ten, The Glow Worm was ready in manuscript. Only the copying and printing remained to be done.
Charteris was out of bed and in the study just as eleven struck. Tony and Welch, arriving half-an-hour later, found him hard at work copying out an article of topical interest in a fair, round hand, quite unrecognisable as his own.
It was an impressive scene. The gas had been cut off, as it always was when the House went to bed, and they worked by the light of candles. Occasionally Welch, breathing heavily in his efforts to make his handwriting look like that of a member of a board-school (second standard), blew one or more of the candles out, and the others grunted fiercely. That was all they could do, for, for evident reasons, a vow of silence had been imposed. Charteris was the first to finish. He leant back in his chair, and the chair, which at a reasonable hour of the day would have endured any treatment, collapsed now with a noise like a pistol-shot.