Guy Steel interposed, in friendly though selfish fashion:
“You can’t blame the reporters. You’ve made history by your great work. The people are interested ; they want to know more about you, and the business of the reporter is to find out for them.”
“I don’t care to have my name and my work flung about in your yellow newspapers. I’m satisfied to have the scientific journals treat the matter; and besides, my manuscript has not yet been sent to the publishers.”
The professor led the way to the study. Not that Guy Steel had need for guidance, however, for he had been in the study many times during his undergraduate days. A sort of protégé of the queer old pedagogue who lived a solitary life in a cottage, Guy had established a close intimacy (it was not really friendship) which gave him frequent access to the study. He was a shy man, was Professor Sanders, and few people possessed his confidence or friendship.
“Why have you the curtains down?” inquired the younger man.
“So those pests of reporters will think no one is at home. But those reporters don’t think; they merely bother. Let’s see—you’re not a reporter, are you?”
“I’m in business. You know, Professor, I’ve heard so much about your wonderful work that I thought I’d presume upon old friendship and come straight to headquarters to get the right dope. I explained in my note; don’t you remember?”
“Too bad. You would have made a scientist.”
“There must be business men as well as scientists. Besides, I shouldn’t have the patience to work at a thing the way you do. How long did it take you to work out your system for the determination of criminals by thumb¬ prints?”
“Nineteen years—all the time I could spare from my teaching for nineteen years. I had to work for a living, my boy, or I’d have given my results to the world ten years ago.”
“Nineteen years! So that’s what you’ve been doing with your spare time! We used to think you were making a new translation of Homer, or something of that sort. And so you’ve been grinding away on the greatest book of the century without anyone knowing a thing about it!”
“Secrecy was essential. When a man begins work along channels that mark a radical departure from generally accepted notions, the scientific world laughs and scoffs. The derision of the public never touches a true scientist: it is the ridicule of fellow scientists that stings and discourages. Now you understand why I told no one—not even you—of my work.”
“How did you ever get the idea in the first place?”
“Two men formed the foundation—Galton and Lombroso.”
“Galton? Any relation to the eugenics man?”
“The same man. His really great work consisted in systematizing the old observation that no two persons have the same thumb-mark. Now, Lombroso, the great Italian anthropologist, showed the scientific world that external marks frequently determine criminality. The shape of a head will often show a murderer. But Lombroso didn’t go far enough: he didn’t produce a working system. All I did was to combine Galton and Lombroso. My work consisted in showing that the lines on the thumbs, which differ in each person, mean something, just as much as the shape of the skull. It took nineteen years, but I’ve succeeded. I’ve reduced Lombroso to a workable system on Galton lines. My system enables you to tell whether a man is a criminal merely by measuring and classifying his thumb-print. Moreover, you can determine what
