“Catching something!” he ejaculated. “Wonder what it may be?”
For ten more minutes he sat watching. Then, when all the gas had apparently passed off he turned the valve, threw out the switch, and sat there lost in thought.
It was interesting, this experiment. This instrument had always fascinated him. He felt that it might be that he had made a discovery. But thus far he could go, no farther. Of chemical analysis he knew nothing. Already he had made a vow with himself that, as soon as his debt of honor was paid, he would begin somewhere, somehow, a study of those sciences which were so closely related to industry—chemistry, metallurgy, engineering, mechanics, physics.
But now he was stuck. He had never really been given permission to work in the laboratory alone at night and he was loath now to admit he had done so.
“Oh, well,” he sighed, “probably nothing to it, anyway. I’ll just label you and put you up here for the present.” He scrawled a few words on a label, pasted it to the bottle containing the dull brown liquid, then set it upon an upper shelf.
“Some day,” he smiled, “perhaps I’ll have the nerve to tell Mr. Brown about it, but not now.” Brown was the head of the laboratory.
He went out into the aisle and began walking slowly up and down before the vault. He was sleepy and tired. This night work was telling on him.
“Wish it was over with,” he muttered. “Anyway,” he smiled, “I’ve got something to show them this time,” and he patted the steel bar in the right-hand pocket of his blouse.
* * * * * * * *
“You say someone drove the traveling crane down the loading-room and helped you chase that man!” the manager exclaimed next day after Johnny had told the story of his queer night’s adventures. “That seems incredible!”