"Black Rad! Eradicate! Him eyes all better now! Pill man take off cloth. Rad—he see light ob day!"
"Oh, I'm so glad! So thankful!" cried Tom. "How I've wished for this! Is it really true, Koku?"
"Sure true! Pill man say Rad see K O now." The giant, doubtless, meant "O K," but Tom understood. And it was true, as he learned more directly a little later.
When Tom entered the room where Rad had been kept in the dark ever since the explosion, the colored man looked at his master with seeing eyes, though the apartment was still but dimly lighted.
"I's all right ag'in now, Massa Tom!" cried Rad. "See fine! I's all ready to make more smellin' stuff to put out fires!"
"You won't have to, Rad!" cried Tom joyfully. "My chemical extinguisher is completed, and you did your share in making it a success. But I never would have felt like claiming credit for it if you had been—had been left in the dark."
"No mo' dark, Massa Tom!" said Eradicate. "I kin see now as good as eber, an' yo'-all won't hab to 'pend on dat lazy good-fo'-nuffin cocoanut!" and he chuckled as he looked at the giant.
"Huh! Lazy!" retorted the big man. "I show you—black coon!"
"By golly!" laughed Rad. "Him an' me good friends now, Massa Tom. Neber I fuss wif Koku any mo'! He suah was good to me when I had to stay in de dark!"
Of course it would be too much to hope that Koku and Eradicate never again quarreled, but for a long time their warm friendship was a thing at which to marvel, considering the past.