“Of course, if the lamps are already turned off,” he said, “it is that the smoke overcame them. That little fellow is particularly bad.”
He indicated a tiny mouse of the sort used in the experiments, lying almost as if in a coma.
Roger, with his quick sympathy, and with Toby eagerly obeying orders, improvised a makeshift “oxygen tent” and since it would be in the way in the room already crowded with the cages and plant-beds, he took the small stimulator with its tiny occupant into the dark-room where he could attend to it and watch the mouse’s reaction and response while he developed some plates taken by the staff the afternoon before.
The mouse, Roger saw with pleasure, gave signs of reviving.
So quickly it recuperated that he put it back into a cage, but kept it near him in the dark-room while he saw, on the developing plates, slow images emerge.
The pictures, photographs of crystal formations, he finished, making wet-contact prints. These he took to Mr. Zendt. Others, of the old astrologer’s, he put aside to print later. They would not be needed for some time.
Coming back, Roger observed that his tiny patient was apparently much better. He dissembled the oxygen apparatus, and was about to take it to his stock-room, to the section where spare apparatus was stored, when he had a visitor.
Mr. Clark, his Tibetan traveling companion, the well-to-do jeweler, came in through the light-trap, with a cheerful greeting.
“How are you doing?” he inquired, “and what is the latest quotation on Tibetan’s, common.” His stock-market joke made Roger grin.
“Glad you didn’t say ‘Tibetan’s, preferred.’” he answered. “As far as I know, they certainly are not preferred. The quotation is lower-than-minus. No sale.”