His
declarations of independence were received pityingly, as the prattles
of a tired child. Gradually he resigned himself, and the germs of
discontent followed the wake of the other germs which Jane had
promptly and forcefully annihilated.
So the years went on; in time the professor grew tired of ranting and
mild objections gave way to sighs of resignation. There had been bones
to pick in plenty. The professor had a sneaking fondness for dirt--not
mud, but historic dust, so to speak; Jane decreed all foreign matter
as damned eternally. The professor liked fiction; he had once in the
first years of Jane's rule started a novel, which having been
inadvertently left in the living-room, was consigned to the flames;
Jane had intimated, moreover, that the authors of such monstrosities
would probably end in the embrace of the same element. Whereupon the
professor's wrath was great; but his house was built on the sand; so
was his novel; and five years afterwards he knew it.
Although Jane's fanatical cleanliness had been far-reaching, the
professor's study was nearly immune.
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