“Look out,” said Philpot, “it’ll blow up.”
“Eh, what?” cried Cusack, jumping off the table in his excitement at the glorious news.
As he did so Philpot uttered a cry, which was accompanied by a loud crackling explosion, and a dense volume of blue smoke, which made the boys turn pale with terror. For a moment neither of them could move or utter a sound except Philpot, who danced round and round the room in the smoke howling and wringing his hand.
When at last they did recover presence of mind enough to inquire of their preceptor if he was injured, it was in tones of terrible alarm.
“Oh, Phil, old man, are you hurt? What was it? We’re so awfully sorry. Is your hand blown off?”
“No,” said Philpot, continuing to wring his injured hand, but otherwise considerably recovered, “it was your fault jumping off the table. The beastly stuff goes off almost if you look at it. It’s lucky it wasn’t all dry, or I might have had my eyes out!”
It was a great relief to find matters were no worse, and that in a very few minutes Philpot’s hand had recovered from the smart of the explosion. This accident, however, decided the young enthusiasts that for the present they had perhaps had enough chemistry for one lesson.
In a few days, however, they had all sufficiently got over the shock of the last afternoon’s experiments to decide on a fresh venture, and these lessons continued, on and off, during the rest of the term. It can hardly be said that by the end of the term Pilbury or Cusack knew any more about chemistry than they had known this first day. They persistently refused to listen to any of Philpot’s “jaw,” as they rudely termed his attempts at explanation, and confined themselves to the experiments. However, though in many respects they wasted their time over their new pursuit, these volatile youths might have been a good deal worse employed.
In fact, if every Welcher had been no worse employed that house would not have brought all the discredit on Willoughby which it did. As it was, everybody there seemed to follow his own sweet will without a single thought for the good of the school or the welfare of his fellows. The heads of the house, Tucker and Silk, did not even attempt to set a good example, and that being so, it was hardly to be expected those below them would be much interested to supply the deficiencies.
On the very afternoon when Pilbury and Cusack had been sitting at the feet of the learned Philpot in the laboratory, Silk, a monitor, had, along with Gilks, of the schoolhouse, a monitor too, gone down to Shellport, against all rules, taking Wyndham junior, one of their special protégés, with them.