The Professor's House
to say. I stood outside the cabin until the gold
light went blue and a few stars came out, hardly
brighter than the bright sky they twinkled in, and
the swallows came flying over us, on their way to
their nests in the cliffs. It was the time of day
when everything goes home. From habit and from
weariness I went in through the door. The kitchen
table was spread for supper, I could smell a rabbit stew cooking on the stove.
Blake lit the lantern
and begged me to eat my supper. I didn't go into
the bunk-room, for I knew the shelves in there were
empty. I heard Blake talking to me as you hear
people talking when you are asleep.
"Who else would have bought them?" he kept saying. "Folks make a lot of fuss over such things, but they don't want to pay good money for them."
When I at last told him that such a thing as selling them had never entered my head, I'm sure he thought I was lying. He reminded me about how we used to talk of getting big money from the Government.
I admitted I'd hoped we'd be paid for our work, and maybe get a bonus of some kind, for our discovery. "But I never thought of selling them, because they weren't mine to sell—nor yours! They belonged to this country, to the State, and to all the people. They belonged to boys like you and me, that have no other ancestors to inherit from. You've gone and sold them to a country that's got
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