When he came out, ten minutes later on, it was a pleasant surprise to discover Miss Mellicent holding a plate in her hand and taking sly peeps inside the shutter, just "to see how it looked." He stormed and raved; Mellicent looked like a martyr, wished to know how a teeny little light like that could possibly hurt anything, and seemed incapable of understanding that if one flash of sunlight could make a picture, it could also destroy it with equal swiftness. Oswald was forced to comfort himself with the reflection that there were still three plates left; and, when all was ready, the six operators squeezed themselves in the dark room, to watch the process of development, indulging the while in the most flowery expectations. "If it is very good, let me send it to an illustrated paper. Oh, do!" said Mellicent, with a gush. "I have often seen groups of people in them. 'The thing-a-me-bob touring company,' and stupid old cricketers, and things like that. We should be far more interesting." "It will make a nice present for mother, enlarged and mounted," said Peggy thoughtfully. "I shall keep an album of my own, and mount every single picture we take. If there are any failures, I shall put them in too, for they will make it all the more amusing. Photograph albums are horribly uninteresting as a rule, but mine will be quite different. There shall be nothing stiff and prim about it; the photographs will be dotted about in all sorts of positions, and underneath each I shall put in--ah--conversational annotations." Her tongue lingered over the words with triumphant enjoyment. "Conversational annotations, describing the circumstances under which it was taken, and anything about it which is worth remembering.... What are you going to do with those bottles?" Oswald ruffled his hair in embarrassment. To pose as an instructor in an art, when one is in doubt about its very rudiments, is a position which has its drawbacks. "I don't--quite--know. The stupid fellow has written instructions on all the other labels, and none on these except simply 'Developer No. 1' and 'Developer No. 2;' I think the only difference is that one is rather stronger than the other. I'll put some of the No. 2 in a dish and see what happens; I believe that's the right way--in fact, I'm sure it is. You pour it over the plate and jog it about, and in two or three minutes the picture ought to begin to appear. Like this." Five eager faces peered over his shoulders, rosy red in the light of the lamp; five pairs of lips uttered a simultaneous "oh!" of surprise; five cries of dismay followed in instant echo. It was the tragedy of a second. Even as Oswald poured the fluid over the plate, a picture flashed before their eyes, each one saw and recognised some fleeting feature; and, in the very moment of triumph, lo, darkness, as of night, a sheet of useless, blackened glass!