Standing in the cold school corridor, Brother Timothy looked around him, running and re-running his problems through his considerable mind. Had Thomas Makyatta been watching, he would have recognized what happened next. Almost idly the muse of the monk fell upon the hall table. On top of the table, he recognized at once, was a valuable book from the Monastery library. It was the book on loan from the Schrattenbach family; Mendel must have brought it here.
Under the table was a canvas sack which the Tomin boys used to carry home Mendel's bounty. Brother Timothy, who also taught on occasions, had seen the boys carrying home food in this sack many times. Perhaps because it was an act of charity that Mendel performed so effortlessly and with such an absence of guile, Brother Timothy really hated those boys. Irrational emotions were not normally part of Brother Timothy's persona, but here lay the source of his actions the previous night. At some level he wanted to hurt Mendel by hurting his 'sparrows'.
It is said that true genius is the ability to make connections between separate ideas that others would never make for themselves. Makyatta had just seen Mendel make such connections in a scientific context during the previous hour. Had he been in the corridor at that moment, he would have seen another type of genius at work. Brother Timothy slowly looked around, and seeing the corridor empty he moved with considerable speed to the hall table. It was the work of a moment to open the sack, drop the valuable book inside, pull the sack closed again and return it to its spot under the table. A connection had been made.
Not too soon. The door to Mendel's classroom swung open and Brother Timothy quickly stepped back into the shadow of the main archway. He heard the last words his fellow monk said to the Tomin boys as they left the room.
"Take heart, I will be speaking to the Board of Trustees myself soon, and I will be speaking to Abbot Napp right away. Between us we will get this policy reversed. But for now, keep up your spirits, go home, study the material from today and write out an essay on the nature of cells."
The boys said very little except to thank Brother Gregory once again for his kindness. Then Jiri Tomin picked up the canvas sack and the two brothers made their way out into the snow. Mendel, who watched them leave, shook his head in sorrow, then went to find Thomas Makyatta and explain what had happened.
As soon as the corridor was free, Brother Timothy stepped out of the shadow of the archway, adjusted his coat and walked quickly to the main doorway. Outside the Tomin boys were clambering over piles of snow along Janska street, while in the school entrance the Ubergepacktrager, or senior porter, was methodically using a large witch-hazel broom to clear more of the snow from the path. On seeing Brother Timothy the pace of this brushing increased slightly.
"Pomoc!" the approaching monk said in Czech, " muzete mi pomoci? Je to velmi nalehave!". - 'Help, can you help me. This is an emergency'. To which the porter nodded, somewhat surprised even to be addressed by one of Dr. Auspitz's distinguished guests.
"Come with me," Brother Timothy demanded of the porter, "do you see those to boys? Do not let them out of your sight."