The Technologists by Matthew Pearl Page B

contemplating them silently to himself, and he realized they had never before appeared in his thoughts.
    No institution in existence had the resources Tech did to inquire into scientific causes. They were even preparing the first laboratory of physics in the country. Perhaps offering to help would indeed provoke criticism from those who distrusted any new sciences, but what if it did? Was it not worth it in order to identify the scientific means that had led to such unthinkable acts? Was that not their moral responsibility?
    Now Agassiz had turned the police into his puppets, no doubt directing their visit to the Institute. The entire afternoon, uniformed men wandered up and down their halls, interrupting classes to ask professors what they were teaching, standing at the back of the laboratories as students tried to concentrate on their experiments, obstructing freshmen on the stairs and asking at random if they had learned anything “dangerous,” “strange,” or “suspicious” lately. Albert Hall shook in his boots as one patrolman leaned over his shoulder, poking confusedly at his test tubes and beakers.
    “And what’s this?”
    “A blowpipe,” Albert said meekly.
    “A what?”
    “It’s an instrument that safely communicates gas into a mixture,” Albert explained.
    “What’s in this one now?” another of the policemen said as he recklessly picked up a glass crucible at Hammie’s station.
    “Nothing much,” Hammie said, with a lurking grin. “Sulfur and saltpeter. I’ve just mixed it.”
    “Well!” the policeman said, unimpressed.
    “Here,” Hammie said. “You may add this dash of carbon to it if you like.”
    “Perhaps that’s not the best idea,” Marcus said, swiping the vessel Hammie was reaching for from the shelf. Then he whispered aside to his classmate, “Are you mad, Hammie?”
    “How?” Hammie replied defensively.
    “Sulfur, saltpeter, carbon? You’re about to have him manufacture gunpowder!”
    He didn’t deny it. “They deserve a little explosion,” Hammie said, sulking.
    Hammie aside, most of the students and professors tried to go about their business as though everything were normal. There was no indication the police would come back again the next day, but to Marcus the passivity of the faculty was unforgivable.
    When he calmed down enough to open his notebook to study during the train ride back to Newburyport, a note slipped onto his lap. It was a sketch of the Charles River exquisite enough to have been rendered by a professional surveyor. At the bottom, in Bob’s hand, it indicated to meet at seven the next morning. Marcus sighed—he did not know if he had much taste for rowing after their last time out and after all the serious news since. But before the train reached Newburyport, he had decided he would meet Bob, as requested. He had not talked about the faculty meeting with Edwin as they ate their dinners on the steps—Edwin appeared occupied enough, and Marcus still was contemplating the debate he had witnessed. But he would talk about it with Bob.
    Though his personal circumstances could not have been more different from Marcus’s, Bob had made Marcus feel as if he understood him from the first time they spoke. They had been freshmen, but more than that, since they were the first class and therefore the only students. Theyconsidered themselves princes, involved in the greatest overthrow of an old and worn-out system since the destruction of tea in 1773—in this case, the classical education they and their professors were kicking out the window.
    In those weeks after the Institute opened in temporary space rented from the Mercantile Library while the construction of the building was under way, Marcus had habitually found an empty corner of the lecture room in which to sit alone and do his work during dinner. His stepfather hadn’t been too far from the mark when he had predicted that, whatever Rogers promised to the contrary, nobody would want him at the