Reuben studied it, aware he was being tested in some way that went far beyond the trifling problem. The box was of ebony, the sides covered with intricate carving of grape leaves. The enameled picture inset in the cover displayed a naked goat-leg fellow plucking a cluster from a vine. Since pressure on the carving brought no result, Reuben methodically tried lifting the leaves With a thumbnail until one yielded and the box was open. "Mph!--most persons spend half an hour and give it up. Well, it was given me--worthless keepsake, he said--by Sir Thomas Sydenham, when as a young man stuffed with mine own importance I called upon him at London. He was most kind. Corrected my quantities, I recall, when I ventured a Latin tag in what he tolerantly called my vile colonial accent. He died, I believe, in the year of the revolution, 1689--so you see, Reuben, time and change, and we grow old somehow." Reuben thought: But he is not speaking to himself in the far-off way of the old; he is speaking to _me_, and for _my_ sake.... "Perhaps you never heard of Sir Thomas?" "No, sir, I never did." "He hath been called the English Hippocrates--an exaggeration, but a great man certainly, I think the greatest in medicine since Harvey." "Harvey?" "There are gaps in your learning after all. I'll be happy to tell you about Harvey if you like. About Signor Malpighi too, who as it happens discovered the presence of the capillaries by dissecting the lung of a frog. Not one of your frogs of course. Some Swiss or Italian frog, unknown benefactor of science." "Did you think, sir, I was all vain because I like to make comical noises with big words?" "No, sir. On reflection--no; I did not think that." "I've been called--oh, flippant or the like, because it seems I do now and then laugh at the wrong time." "Who calls you that?" "Oh!... My tutor for one, but meaneth no harm by it. Actually he's very kind, and I suppose I try him badly, but then by chance I'll pronounce some Latin quantity correctly or come unscathed through the horrid jungle of some Greek verb, and he forgiveth all." "M. Cory, I have been sitting here fearing that perhaps _I_ had laughed at the wrong times, and that you might regard me as--mm-yas, flippant or the like." "I do not." "In that view of the case, perhaps you and I ought to be friends." "As a matter of fact," said Reuben, "I thought we already were." * * * * * South of Boston Neck the road to Roxbury entered a desolate mile between the waters of Gallows Bay on the east and a waste of salt marsh. Here the smell of the sea was all about you; above, a meager crying of gulls in the windy daytime. Near Roxbury the salt flats and Gallows Bay were partly hidden by woods and rocky knolls. Lights were said to wander this mile of road at night, not fireflies nor lanterns of vessels on Gallows Bay, which had honestly earned its name.