The Younger Set eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 549 pages of information about The Younger Set.

The Younger Set eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 549 pages of information about The Younger Set.

So subdued, so listless, so gentle in manner and speech had he become that somebody, in his temporary absence, wondered whether the boy were perfectly well—­which voiced the general doubt hitherto unexpressed.

But Austin laughed and said that the boy was merely finding himself; and everybody acquiesced, much relieved at the explanation, though to Selwyn the explanation was not at all satisfactory.

There was trouble somewhere, stress of doubt, pressure of apprehension, the gravity of immaturity half realising its own inexperience.  And one day in September he wrote Gerald, asking him to bring Edgerton Lawn and come down to Silverside for the purpose of witnessing some experiments with the new smokeless explosive, Chaosite.

Young Lawn came by the first train; Gerald wired that he would arrive the following morning.

He did arrive, unusually pallid, almost haggard; and Selwyn, who met him at the station and drove him over from Wyossett, ventured at last to give the boy a chance.

But Gerald remained utterly unresponsive—­stolidly so—­and the other instantly relinquished the hope of any confidence at that time—­shifting the conversation at once to the object and reason of Gerald’s coming, and gaily expressing his belief that the time was very near at hand when Chaosite would figure heavily in the world’s list of commercially valuable explosives.

It was early in August that Selwyn had come to the conclusion that his Chaosite was likely to prove a commercial success.  And now, in September, his experiments had advanced so far that he had ventured to invite Austin, Gerald, Lansing, and Edgerton Lawn, of the Lawn Nitro-Powder Company, to witness a few tests at his cottage laboratory on Storm Head; but at the same time he informed them with characteristic modesty that he was not yet prepared to guarantee the explosive.

About noon his guests arrived before the cottage in a solemn file, halted, and did not appear overanxious to enter the laboratory on Storm Head.  Also they carefully cast away their cigars when they did enter, and seated themselves in a nervous circle in the largest room of the cottage.  Here their eyes instantly became glued to a great bowl which was piled high with small rose-tinted cubes of some substance which resembled symmetrical and translucent crystals of pink quartz.  That was Chaosite enough to blow the entire cliff into smithereens; and they were aware of it, and they eyed it with respect.

First of all Selwyn laid a cubic crystal on an anvil, and struck it sharply and repeatedly with a hammer.  Austin’s thin hair rose, and Edgerton Lawn swallowed nothing several times; but nobody went to heaven, and the little cube merely crumbled into a flaky pink powder.

Then Selwyn took three cubes, dropped them into boiling milk, fished them out again, twisted them into a waxy taper, placed it in a candle-stick, and set fire to it.  The taper burned with a flaring brilliancy but without odour.

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The Younger Set from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.