Page:White and Hopkins--The mystery.djvu/151

Rh for Percy Darrow and his lantern. The first evening we took him over to the cliff's edge he laughed aloud.

"Jove, boys, how could you guess it all wrong," he wondered.

With a few brief words he set us right, Pulz, Perdosa, and I listening intently; the others indifferent in the hopelessness of being able to comprehend. Of course, we went wrong again in our next day's experiments; but Darrow was down two or three times a week, and gradually we edged toward a practical result.

His explanations consumed but a few moments. After they were finished, we adjourned to the fire.

Thus we came gradually to a better acquaintance with the doctor's assistant. In many respects he remained always a puzzle, to me. Certainly the men never knew how to take him. He was evidently not only unafraid of them, but genuinely indifferent to them.

Yet he displayed a certain interest in their needs and affairs. His practical knowledge was enormous. I think I have told you of the completeness of his arrangements—everything had been foreseen from grindstones to gas nippers. The same quality of concrete speculation showed him what we lacked in our own lives.

There was, as you remember, the matter of Handy Solomon's steel claw. He showed Thrackles a kind of lanyard knot that deep-sea person had never used. He taught Captain Selover how to make soft soap out of one species of seaweed. Me, he ini-