“Wow! I’m a misfit all right! Somebody must have got my other hand in the shuffle. The worst of it is, how am I to tell which one really belongs to the Billings family?” lamented the fat student, sighing in pretended distress.
So the glass went around. Frank stood still while Lanky followed the movement of the magnifier until every one had taken a look, and was ready to admit the truth of what Frank had said.
“No two alike in the whole bunch. I never would have believed it,” admitted Lanky, who had been peering at every impression.
Without appearing to do so, he had managed to crowd several of the boys away from the table, and among them Lef; but having seen the wonders of the magnifying glass proven, like most of their type they had suddenly lost interest in the matter, and were already turning their attention toward the parallel bars, the swinging hoops and the punching bags.
Left alone at the table, Frank made a pretense of arranging the trays just as he had found them, now and then taking a look through the magnifier. He had his eye on Lef and waited until the other was engaged in some stunt at which he excelled.
At first Lef had been debarred even the privileges of the gymnasium on account of his playing a miserable trick upon Frank as the editor of the Columbia monthly paper; but after a bit this order had been rescinded, so that now he was allowed to join his fellows in their muscle-building work.
When Frank presently saw the name of Lef Seller written on the white tab of a moulding tray, and discovered that the imprints of the other’s hands were plainly stamped there before him, he eagerly held his glass over the box. At the same time he drew out the paper that had come to Professor Peake, and compared the delicate tracery of lines on the thumb with that which Lef had left behind him in the moulding clay.
There could be no possible mistake!
The same thumb had made both impressions beyond a possibility of doubt!