The registrar of Middletown College, being a newcomer, saw nothing unusual
in the fact that the librarian came to his office on matriculation day to
enroll as a freshman a shy, dark-eyed lad with a foreign name; but the
president and older professors were petrified into speechlessness by the
news that old J.M. had returned from parts unknown with a queer-looking
boy, who called the old man uncle. Their amazement rose to positive
incredulity when they heard that the fastidious, finical old bachelor had
actually installed a raw freshman in one of his precious tower-rooms,
always before inexorably guarded from the mildest and most passing
intrusion on their hallowed quiet.
The president made all haste to call on J.M. and see the phenomenon with
his own eyes. As discreetly as his raging curiosity would allow him, he
fell to questioning the former recluse. When he learned that J.M. had
spent six weeks in Woodville, no more explanation seemed needed. "Oh, of
course, your old home?"
"Yes," said J.M., "my old home."
"And you had a warm welcome there, I dare say?"
"Yes, indeed," said J.M.
"Found the old town in good condition?"
"Excellent!" this with emphasis.
The president saw it all, explaining it competently to himself. "Yes, yes,
I see it from here--vacation spent in renewing your youth playing with the
children--promised to go back at Christmas, I suppose."
"Oh, yes, of course," said J.M.
"Children cried when you came away, and gave you dotty little things
they'd made themselves?"
"Just like that," with a reminiscent smile.
"Well, well," the president got to his feet. "Of course, most natural
thing in the world to take an interest in your brothers' and sisters'
children."
J.M. did not contradict the president. He never contradicted the
presidents. He outlasted them so consistently that it was not necessary.
This time he took off his glasses and rubbed them on an awkwardly
fashioned chamois spectacle-wiper made for him by little Molly McCartey.
He noticed the pattern of the silk in his visitor's necktie and it made
him think of one of Rosalie Loyette's designs. He smiled a little.
The president regarded this smiling silence with suspicion. He cocked his
eye penetratingly upon his librarian. "But it is very queer, J.M., that as
long as I have known you, I never heard that you _had_ any family at all."
J.M. put his clean and polished spectacles back on his nose and looked
through them into the next room, where Ivan Petrofsky sat devouring his
first lesson in political economy. Then he turned, beaming like an amiable
sphinx upon his interrogator. "Do you know--I never realized it myself
until just lately," he said.