The Family
the only two men on the faculty who were doing
research work of an uncommercial nature, and they
occasionally dropped in on one another to exchange
ideas. But that was as far as it went. St. Peter
couldn’t ask Crane to dinner; the presence of a bottle of claret on the table would have made him uncomfortable. Dr. Crane had all the prejudices of
the Baptist community in which he grew up. He
carried them with him when he went to study at a
German university, and brought them back. But
Crane knew that none of his colleagues followed his work so closely, and rejoiced at his little triumphs so heartily, as St. Peter.
St. Peter couldn’t help admiring the man’s courage; poor, ill, overworked, held by his conscience to a generous discharge of his duties as a teacher, he was all the while carrying on these tedious and delicate experiments that had to do with determining the extent of space. Fortunately, Crane seemed to have no social needs or impulses. He never went anywhere, except, once or twice a year, to a dinner at the President’s house. Music disturbed him too much, dancing shocked him—he couldn’t see why it was permitted among the students. Once, after Mrs. St. Peter had sat next him at the President’s dinner-table, she said to her husband: The man is too dreary! All evening his heavy underwear kept coming down below his cuffs, and he kept poking it back with his fore-finger. I believe he
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