The Lighter Side of School Life Part 9

Silence fell, as it usually does when the question of belling the cat arrives at the practical stage.

"We could report him to the Head," said another voice. "We might get him the sack for a.s.sault--even quod! We could show Nixon's head to him. It would be a sound scheme to make it bleed a bit before we took him up."

The speaker fingered a heavy ruler lovingly, but Mr. Nixon edged coldly out of reach.

"Certainly," agreed the President, "Bashan ought to be stopped knocking us about in form."

"I'd rather have one clout over the earhole," observed an Anarchist who so far had not spoken, "than be taken along to Bashan's study and given six of the best. That is what the result would be. Hallo, Stinker, what's that?"

The gentleman addressed--a morose, unclean, and spectacled youth of scientific proclivities--was the latest recruit to the gang. He had been admitted at the instance of Master Nixon, who had pointed out that it would be a good thing to enrol as a member some one who understood "Chemistry and Stinks generally." He could be used for the manufacture of bombs, and so on.

Stinker had produced from his pocket a corked test-tube, tightly packed with some dark substance.

"What's that?" inquired the Anarchists in chorus. (They nearly always talked in chorus.)

"It's a new kind of explosive," replied the inventor with great pride.

"I hope it's better than that new kind of stinkpot you invented for choir-practice," remarked a cynic from the corner of the study. "That was a rotten fraud, if you like! It smelt more like lily-of-the-valley than any decent stink."

"Dry up, Ashley minor!" rejoined the inventor indignantly. "This is a jolly good bomb. I made it to-day in the Lab, while The Badger was trying to put out a bonfire at the other end."

"Where does the patent come in?" inquired the President judicially.

"The patent is that it doesn't go off all at once."

"We know _that_!" observed the unbelieving Ashley.

"Do you chuck it or light it?" asked Nixon.

"You light it. At least, you shove it into the fire, and it goes off in about ten minutes. You see the idea? If Bashan doesn't see us put anything into the form-room fire, he will think it was something wrong with the coal."

The Anarchists, much interested, murmured approval.

"Good egg!" observed the President. "We'll put it into the fire to-morrow morning before he comes in, and after we have been at work ten minutes or so the thing will go off and blow the whole place to smithereens."

"Golly!" gobbled the Anarchists.

"What about us, Stinker?" inquired a cautious conspirator. "Shan't we get damaged?"

Stinker waved away the objection.

"We shall know it's coming," he said; "so we shall be able to dodge. But it will be a nasty jar for Bashan."

There was a silence, full of rapt contemplation of to-morrow morning.

Then the discordant voice of Ashley minor broke in.

"I don't believe it will work. All your inventions are putrid, Stinker."

"I'll fight you!" squealed the outraged scientist, bounding to his feet.

"I expect it'll turn out to be a fire-extinguisher, or something like that," pursued the truculent Ashley.

"Hold the bomb," said Stinker to the President, "while I----"

"Sit down," urged the other Anarchists, drawing in their toes. "There's no room here. Ashley minor, chuck it!"

"It won't work," muttered Ashley doggedly.

Suddenly a brilliant idea came upon Stinker.

"Won't work, won't it?" he screamed. "All right, then! We'll shove it into this fire now, and you see if it doesn't work!"

Among properly const.i.tuted Anarchistic Societies it is not customary, when the efficacy of a bomb is in dispute, to employ the members as a _corpus vile_. But the young do not fetter themselves with red-tape of this kind. With one accord Stinker's suggestion was acclaimed, and the bomb was thrust into the glowing coals of Rumford's study fire. The brotherhood, herded together within a few feet of the grate--the apartment measured seven feet by six--breathed hard and waited expectantly.

Five minutes pa.s.sed--then ten.

"It ought to be pretty ripe now," said the inventor anxiously.

The President, who was sitting next the window, prudently m.u.f.fled his features in the curtain. The others drew back as far as they could--about six inches--and waited.

Nothing happened.

"I am sure it will work all right," declared the inventor desperately.

"Perhaps the temperature of this fire----"

He knelt down, and began to blow upon the flickering coals. There was a long and triumphant sniff from Master Ashley.

"I said it was only a rotten stinkp--" he began.

BANG!

There is a special department of Providence which watches over the youthful chemist. The explosion killed no one, though it blew the coals out of the grate and the pictures off the walls.

The person who suffered most was the inventor. He was led, howling but triumphant, to the Sanatorium.

"Luckily, sir," explained Rumford to Mr. Bull a few days later, in answer to a kindly inquiry as to the extent of the patient's injuries, "it was only his face."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE NIPPER]

CHAPTER FIVE

THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE