Part 57 (2/2)

”And you, d.i.c.k?”

”Ask you to lend me your Mackintosh, father. It's too rough to stay in.

The sea's grand.”

Arthur had already taken up a book, but he now laid it down.

”I don't think it rains, does it?”

”No; only blows,” replied d.i.c.k; ”but when you get where the spray comes off the sea, it's like a shower.”

”I think we'll all go,” said Mr Temple. ”I want to test a few minerals first. Afterwards I should like to go down and have a look at the waves.”

It was settled that the boys should wait, and Mr Temple at once lit a spirit-lamp from a strong box of apparatus he had brought down; and, taking out a blow-pipe, he spent some little time melting, or calcining, different pieces of ore and stone that he had collected, one special piece being of white-looking mineral that took d.i.c.k's notice a good deal, for it seemed familiar.

”Isn't that the stone you got in the place Will Marion showed to you, father?”

”Yes, my boy,” said Mr Temple; ”why?”

”Only I thought it was,” said d.i.c.k. ”Is it valuable?”

”I don't know yet. Perhaps.”

”If it is valuable, will it do Will any good?”

”I don't know yet about that either, my inquisitive young friend,” said Mr Temple.

”I think it ought if it's any good,” said d.i.c.k after a pause, during which he had been watching his father attentively.

”Do you?” said Mr Temple coldly; and he went on calcining a piece of the soft white stone, and then placing it in a mortar to grind it up fine.

This done, he took the powder out and spread it upon a small gla.s.s slab, where he applied a few drops of water to it, and mixed and mixed till he had formed the white powder into a paste that looked like white clay.

”I say, father,” said d.i.c.k.

”Yes.”

”Will would like to see what you are doing with that stuff. May I tell him?”

”No,” said Mr Temple, quietly kneading the white paste in his fingers and then examining it with a powerful lens. ”I desire that you say no word about anything that you may see me doing. This is private work that to-day unknown to anyone else may be very valuable. Known to all the world, it might prove to be not very valuable, but absolutely worthless. Wait, my boy, and see.”

Waiting was always an unpleasant task for d.i.c.k Temple. Time never ran half fast enough for him, and to have to wait in what he called, after some one whom he had heard make use of the term, a state of mental anxiety, was something hard to be borne.

Arthur calmly took a book, after glancing in the gla.s.s to see if his collar was quite right and his hair properly brushed. He could sit and read in the most placid manner; but d.i.c.k seemed to have quicksilver in his toes and fingers. He could not keep still, but was always on the fret to be doing something.

In his eagerness to help he got into trouble three times with his father, his aid being given invariably at the wrong time, and generally resulting in his knocking over some bottle, disturbing a test, or breaking some delicate piece of apparatus.

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