The Family
“Hold them still a moment,” said the Professor,
looking down, not at the turquoises, but at the hand that held them: the muscular, many-lined palm, the
long, strong fingers with soft ends, the straight
little finger, the flexible, beautifully shaped thumb
that curved back from the rest of the hand as if it
were its own master. What a hand! He could
see it yet, with the blue stones lying in it.
In a moment the stranger was gone, and the St. Peter family sat down and looked at one another. He remembered just what his wife had said on that occasion.
“Well, this is something new in students, Godfrey. We ask a poor perspiring tramp boy to lunch, to save his pennies, and he departs leaving princely gifts.”
Yes, the Professor reflected, after all these years, that was still true. Fellows like Outland don’t carry much luggage, yet one of the things you know them by is their sumptuous generosity—and when they are gone, all you can say of them is that they departed leaving princely gifts.
With a good tutor, young Outland had no difficulty in making up three years’ mathematics in four months. Latin, he owned, had been hard for him. But in mathematics, he didn’t have to work, he had merely to give his attention. His tutor had never known anything like it. But St. Peter held the boy at arm’s length. As a young teacher full of
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