Page:Birthright.djvu/176

 four o'clock last night; so I put it out and went to bed. I've been working at it this evening. There's a little hole in the tip,—if I could see it,—a hair-sized hole, painfully small. Why any man wants to make gasolene lamps with microscopic holes that ordinary intelligence must inform him will become clogged I cannot conceive.“

Peter ventured no opinion on this trait of lampmakers, but said that if the Captain knew where he could get an oil hand-lamp for a little more light, he thought he could unstop the hole.

The Captain looked at his helper and shook his head.

“I am surprised at you, Peter. When I was your age, I could see an aperture like that hole under the last quarter of the moon. In this strong light I could have—er—lunged the cleaner through it, sir. You must have strained your eyes in college.” He paused, then added: “You'll find hand-lamps in any of the rooms fronting this porch. I don't know whether they have oil in them or not—the shiftless niggers that come around to take care of this building—no dependence to be put in them. When I try it myself, I do even worse.”

The old gentleman's tone showed that he was thawing out of his irritable mood, and Peter sensed that he meant to be amusing in an austere, unsmiling fashion. The Captain rubbed his delicate wrinkled hands together in a pleased fashion and sat down in a big porch chair to await Peter's assembling of the lamp. The