was carrying on important research work was Doctor Crane, the professor of physics. St. Peter saw a good deal of him, though outside his specialty he was uninteresting—a narrow-minded man, and painfully unattractive. Years ago Crane had begun to suffer from a malady which in time proved incurable, and which now sent him up for an operation periodically. St. Peter had had no friend in Hamilton of whom Lillian could possibly be jealous until Tom Outland came along, so well fitted by nature and early environment to help him with his work on the Spanish Adventurers.
When he had almost reached his old house and his study, the Professor remembered that he really must have an understanding with his landlord, or the place would be rented over his head.
He turned and went down into another part of the city, by the car shops, where only workmen lived, and found his landlord’s little toy house, set on a hillside, over a basement faced up with red brick and covered with hop vines.
Old Appelhoff was sitting on a bench before his door, making a broom. Raising broom corn was one of his economies. Beside him was his dachshund bitch, Minna.