In the first place the door was
usually locked and the key discreetly lost; and in the next place the
professor had mildly but very obstinately insisted, through all the
twenty years, that his desk, which is the sanctum sanctorum of the man
with a past, remain untouched. Jane sniffed copiously over this
stipulation, and, as she liked to do a thing thoroughly or not at all,
the study remained as a whole comfortably mussy. Sometimes, however,
Jane had twinges of conscience, resulting in the disappearance of all
old, unbound, and destructible matter which presented itself. So the
professor painstakingly replaced equally old and disreputable matter
around the study when the whirlwind had passed, and waited till the
dust settled.
Of late the professor had been ill with a chronic rheumatism. He
grumbled a good deal about the "positively senile" character of his
affliction and finally agreed to take to his bed for a few days in the
hope of luring nature to a hasty cure. The professor was rather
helpless when he was ill; Jane was painfully and triumphantly
energetic.
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