 CHAPTER 1. I HAVE ROUGHT MY SIMPLE PLAN IF I GIVE ONE HOUR OF JOY TO THE BOY WHO'S HALF A MAN OR THE MAN WHO'S HALF A BOY. THE LOST WORLD by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle THE FORWARD Mr. Edie Malone desires to state that both the injunction for restraint and the libel action have been withdrawn unreservedly by Professor G. E. Challenger, who, being satisfied that no criticism or comment in this book is meant in an offensive spirit, has guaranteed that he will place no impediment to its publication and circulation. CHAPTER 1. THERE ARE HEROISMS ALL ROUND US Mr. Hungerton, her father, really was the most tackless person upon earth, a fluffy, feathery, untidy cockatoo of a man, perfectly good nature, but absolutely centered upon his own silly self. If anything could have driven me from Gladys, it would have been the thought of such a father-in-law. I'm convinced that he really believed in his heart that I came round to the chestnuts three days a week for the pleasure of his company, and very especially to hear his views upon bimetalism, a subject upon which he was by way of being an authority. For an hour or more that evening I listened to his monotonous chirrup about bad money driving out good, the token value of silver, the depreciation of the rupee, and the true standards of exchange. Suppose, he cried with feeble violence, that all the debts in the world were called up simultaneously, and immediate payment insisted upon what under our present conditions would happen then. I gave the self-evident answer that I should be a ruined man upon which he jumped from his chair, reproved me for my habitual levity, which made it impossible for him to discuss any reasonable subject in my presence, and bounced off out of the room to dress for a Masonic meeting. At last I was alone with Gladys, and the moment of fate had come. All that evening I had felt like the soldier who awaits the signal which will send him on a forlorn hope, hope of victory and fear of repulse alternating in his mind. She sat with that proud, delicate profile of hers outlined against the red curtain, how beautiful she was, and yet how aloof! We had been friends, quite good friends, but never could I get beyond the same comradeship which I might have established with one of my fellow reporters upon the Gazette, perfectly frank, perfectly kindly, and perfectly unsexual. My instincts are all against a woman being too frank and at ease with me. It is no compliment to a man. Where the real sex-feeling begins, timidity and distress are its companions, heritage from old wicked days when love and violence went off in hand and hand. The bent head, the averted eye, the faltering voice, the wincing figure, these, and not the unshrinking gaze in frank reply, are the true signals of passion, even in my short life I had learned as much as that, or had inherited it in that race memory which we call instinct. Gladys was full of every womanly quality, some judged her to be cold and hard, but such a thought was treason, that delicately bronze skin, almost oriental in its coloring, that raven hair, the large liquid eyes, the full but exquisite lips, all the stigmata of passion were there, but I was sadly conscious that up to now I had never found the secret of drawing it forth. However, come what might, I should have done with suspense and bring matters to a head to-night. She could but refuse me, and better be a repulsed lover than an accepted brother. So far my thoughts had carried me, and I was about to break the long and uneasy silence when two critical, dark eyes looked round at me, and the proud head was shaken and smiling reproof. I have a presentiment that you are going to propose, Ned. I do wish you wouldn't, for things are so much nicer as they are. I drew my chair a little nearer. Now how did you know that I was going to propose? I asked in genuine wonder. Don't women always know? Do you suppose any woman in the world was ever taken unawares? But, oh, Ned, our friendship has been so good and so pleasant. What a pity to spoil it! Don't you feel how splendid it is that a young man and a young woman should be able to talk face to face with the station master? I can't imagine how that official came into the matter, but in he trotted and set us both laughing. That does not satisfy me in the least. I want my arms around you, and your head on my breast, and, oh, Gladys, I want—she had sprung from her chair as she saw signs that I proposed to Demonson, and that she was going to She had sprung from her chair as she saw signs that I proposed to demonstrate some of my wants. You spoiled everything, Ned, she said. It's also beautiful and natural until this kind of thing comes in. It is such a pity. Why can't you control yourself? I didn't invent it. I pleaded. It's nature. It's love. Well, perhaps if both love it may be different. I have never felt it. But you must. You, with your beauty, with your soul—oh, Gladys, you were made for love. You must love. One must wait till it comes. But why can't you love me, Gladys? Is it my appearance, or what? She did unbend a little. She put forward a hand. Such a gracious, stooping attitude it was, and she pressed back my head. Then she looked into my upturned face with a very wistful smile. No. It isn't that, she said at last. You're not a conceited boy by nature, and so I can safely tell you it is not that. It's deeper. My character? She nodded severely. What can I do to mend it? Do sit down and talk it over? No, really. I won't, if you'll only sit down. She looked at me with a wandering distrust, which was much more to my mind than her wholehearted confidence. How primitive and bestial it looks when you put it down in black and white, and perhaps after all it is only a feeling peculiar to myself. Anyway, she sat down. Now tell me what's amiss with me. I'm in love with somebody else, said she. It was my turn to jump out of my chair. It's nobody in particular, she explained, laughing at the expression of my face. Only an ideal. I've never met the kind of man I mean. Tell me about him. What does he look like? Oh, he might look very much like you. How dear of you to say that. Well, what is it that he does that I don't do? Just say the word. T-Total, vegetarian, aeronaut, theosophist, Superman? I'll have a try at it, Gladys, if you'll only give me an idea what would please you. She laughed at the elasticity of my character. Well, in the first place I don't think my ideal would speak like that, said she. He would be a harder, sterner man, not so ready to adapt himself to a silly girl's whim. But, above all, he must be a man who could do, who could act, who could look death in the face and have no fear of him. A man of great deeds and strange experiences. It is never a man that I should love but always the glories he had won. For they would be reflected upon me. Think of Richard Burton. When I read his wife's life of him I could so understand her love. And, ladies Stanley, did you ever read the wonderful last chapter of that book about her husband? These are the sort of men that a woman could worship with all her soul and yet be the greater, not the less, on account of her love, honoured by all the world as the inspirer of noble deeds. She looked so beautiful in her enthusiasm that I nearly brought down the whole level of the interview. I gripped myself hard and went on with the argument. We can't all be Stanley's impertence, said I. Besides, we don't get the chance. At least I never had the chance. If I did, I should try to take it. But chances are all around you. It is the mark of the kind of man I mean that he makes his own chances. You can't hold him back. I've never met him and yet I seem to know him so well. There are heroisms all round us waiting to be done. It's for men to do them and for women to reserve their love as a reward for such men. Look at that young Frenchman who went up last week in a balloon. It was blowing a gale of wind, but because he was announced to go he insisted on starting. The wind blew him fifteen hundred miles in twenty-four hours and he fell in the middle of Russia. That was the kind of man I mean. Think of the woman he loved and how other women must have envied her. That's what I should like to be, envied for my man. I'd have done it to please you. But you shouldn't do it merely to please me. You should do it because you can't help yourself, because it's natural to you, because the man in you is crying out for heroic expression. Now, when you described the Wigan coal explosion last month, could you not have gone down and helped those people in spite of the choked damp? I did. You never said so. There was nothing worth bucking about. I didn't know. She looked at me with rather more interest. That was brave of you. I had to. If you want to write good copy, you must be where the things are. What a prosaic motive. It seems to take all the romance out of it. But still, whatever your motive, I am glad that you went down that mine. She gave me her hand, but with such sweetness and dignity that I could only stoop and kiss it. I daresay I am merely a foolish woman with a young girl's fancies, and yet it is so real with me, so entirely part of my very self, that I cannot help acting upon it. If I marry, I do want to marry a famous man. Why should you not? I cried. It is women like you who brace men up. Give me a chance and see if I will take it. Besides, as you say, men ought to make their own chances and not wait until they are given. Look at Clive, just a clerk, and he conquered India. By George I'll do something in the world yet. She laughed at my sudden Irish effervescence. Why not? she said. You have everything a man could have—youth, health, strength, education, energy. I was sorry you spoke, and now I am glad, so glad, if it wakens those thoughts in you. And if I do? Her dear hand rested like warm velvet upon my lips. Not another word, sir. You should have been at the office for evening duty half an hour ago. Only I hadn't the heart to remind you. Some day, perhaps, when you have won your place in the world, we shall talk it over again. And so it was that I found myself that foggy November evening, pursuing the camberwell tram with my heart glowing within me, and with the eager determination that not another day should elapse before I should find some deed which was worthy of my lady. But who? Who, in all this wide world, could ever have imagined the incredible shape which that deed was to take, or the strange steps by which I was led to the doing of it? And, after all, this opening chapter will seem to the reader to have nothing to do with my narrative, and yet there would have been no narrative without it. For it is only when a man goes out into the world with the thought that there are heroisms all round him, and with a desire all alive in his heart to follow any which may come within sight of him, that he breaks away as I did from the life he knows, and ventures forth into the wonderful mystic twilight land where lie the great adventures and the great rewards. Behold me, then, at the office of the Daily Gazette, on the staff of which I was a most insignificant unit, with the subtle determination that very night, if possible, to find the quest which should be worthy of my gladness. Was it hardness? Was it selfishness that she should ask me to risk my life for her own glorification? Such thoughts may come to middle age, but never to ardent three and twenty in the fever of his first love. This recording is by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. The Lost World, by Arthur Conan Doyle. Chapter 2. Try Your Luck with Professor Challenger. I always liked MacGardle, the crabbed, old, round-backed, red-headed news editor, and I rather hoped that he liked me. Of course, Beaumont was the real boss, but he lived in the rarefied atmosphere of some Olympian height from which he could distinguish nothing smaller than an international crisis or a split in the cabinet. Sometimes we saw him passing in lonely majesty to his inner sanctum, with his eyes staring vaguely, and his mind hovering over the Balkans or the Persian Gulf. He was above and beyond us. But MacGardle was his first lieutenant, and it was he that we knew. The old mad nodded as I entered the room, and he pushed his spectacles far up on his bald forehead. Well, Mr. Malone, from all I hear you seem to be doing very well, said he and his kindly scotch accent. I thanked him. The colliery explosion was excellent. So was the Southwick fire. You have the true descriptive touch. What did you want to see me about? To ask a favour. He looked alarmed, and his eyes shunned mine. What is it? Do you think, sir, that you could possibly send me on some mission for the paper? I would do my best to put it through and get you some good copy. What sort of mission had you in mind, Mr. Malone? Well, sir, anything that had adventure and danger in it, I really would do my very best. The more difficult it was, the better it would suit me. You seem very anxious to lose your life. To justify my life, sir. Dear me, Mr. Malone, this is very, very exalted. I'm afraid that the day for this sort of thing is rather past. The expense of the special mission business hardly justifies the result, and, of course, in any case, it would only be an experienced man with a name that would command public confidence, who would get such an order. The big blank spaces in the map are all being filled in, and there's no room for romance anywhere. Wait a bit, though, he added with a sudden smile upon his face. Talking of the blank spaces of the map gives me an idea. What about exposing a fraud, a modern Munchausen, and making him ridiculous? You could show him up as a liar that he is. Hey, man, it would be fine. How does it appeal to you? Anything, anywhere, I care nothing. MacGardle was plunged in thought for some minutes. I wonder whether you could get on friendly, or at least on talking terms with the fellow, he said at last. You seem to have a sort of genius for establishing relations with people, sympathy, I suppose, or animal magnetism, or youthful vitality, or something. I am conscious of it myself. You are very good, sir. So why should you not try your luck with Professor Challenger of Inmore Park? I daresay I looked a little startled. Challenger, I cried. Professor Challenger, the famous zoologist? Wasn't he the man who broke the skull of Blundle, of the telegraph? The news editor smiled grimly. And do you mind? Didn't you say it was adventures you were after? It is all in the way of business, sir, I answered. Exactly. I don't suppose he can always be so violent as that. I am thinking that Blundle got him at the wrong moment, maybe, or in the wrong fashion. You may have better luck, or more attacked in handling him. There's something in your line there, I'm sure, and the gazette should work it. I really know nothing about him, said I. I only remember his name in connection with the police court proceedings for striking Blundle. I have a few notes for your guidance, Mr. Malone. I've had my eye on the Professor for some little time. He took a paper from a drawer. Here is a summary of his record. I give it to you briefly. Challenger, George Edward. Born. Largs, NB, 1863. Education. Largs Academy. Edinburgh University. British Museum Assistant, 1892. Assistant Keeper of Comparative Anthropology Department, 1893. Resigned after acrimonious correspondence, same year. Winner of Crescent's Medal for Zoological Research. Four member of, well, quite a lot of things, about two inches of small type. Societe Belge. American Academy of Sciences. La Plata, et cetera, et cetera. Ex-President, Paleontological Society. Section H. British Association. As so on and so on. Publications. Some observations upon a series of Kaumuck's skulls. Outlines of vertebrate evolution. And numerous papers, including the underlying fallacy of Weismanism, which caused heated discussion at the Zoological Congress of Vienna. Recreations. Walking. Alpine climbing. Edress. Enmore Park. Kensington, W. There. Take it with you. I have nothing more for you tonight. I pocketed a slip of paper. One moment, sir. I said, as I realized that it was a pink bald head and not a red face which was fronting me. I am not very clear yet why I am to interview this gentleman. What has he done? The face flashed back again. Went to South America on a solitary expedition two years ago. Came back last year. Had undoubtedly been to South America, but refused to say exactly where. Began to tell his adventures in a vague way. But somebody started to pick holes and he just shut up like an oyster. Something wonderful happened, or the man's a champion liar, which is the more probable supposition. Had some damaged photographs said to be fakes. Got so touchy that he assaults anyone who asks questions and heaves reporters down the stairs. In my opinion, he's just a homicidal megalomaniac with a turn for science. That's your man, Mr. Malone. Now off you run and see what you can make of him. You are big enough to look after yourself. Anyway, you are all safe. Employer's liability act, you know. A grinning red face turned once more into a pink oval, fringed with gingery fluff. The interview was at an end. I walked across to the Savage Club, but instead of turning into it, I leaned upon the railings of a Delphi terrace and gazed thoughtfully for a long time at the Brown Oily River. I can always think most sanely and clearly in the open air. I took out the list of Professor Challenger's exploits and I read it over under the electric lamp. Then I had what I can only regard as an inspiration. As a pressman, I felt sure from what I had been told that I could never hope to get into touch with this cantankerous professor. But these recriminations, twice mentioned in his skeleton biography, could only mean that he was a fanatic in science. Was there not an exposed margin there upon which he might be accessible? I would try. I entered the club. It was just after eleven and the big room was fairly full, though the rush had not yet set in. I noticed a tall, thin, angular man seated in an armchair by the fire. He turned as I drew my chair up to him. It was the man of all others whom I should have chosen, Tarp Henry, of the staff of nature, a thin, dry, leathery creature who was full to those who knew him, of kindly humanity. I plunged instantly into my subject. What do you know of Professor Challenger? Challenger! He gathered his brows in scientific disapproval. Challenger was the man who came with some cock and bull story from South America. What story? Oh, it was ranked nonsense about some queer animals he had discovered. I believe he has retracted since. Anyhow, he has suppressed it all. He gave an interview to Reuters, and there was such a howl that he saw it wouldn't do. It was a discreditable business. There were one or two folk who were inclined to take him seriously, but he soon choked them off. How? Well, by his insufferable rudeness and impossible behavior, there was poor old Wadley of the Zoological Institute. Wadley sent a message. The President of the Zoological Institute presents his compliments to Professor Challenger, and would take it as a personal favor if he would do them the honor to come to their next meeting. The answer was unprintable. You don't say. Well, a boldlerized version of it would run. Professor Challenger presents his compliments to the President of the Zoological Institute, and would take it as a personal favor if he would go to the devil. Good Lord! Yes, I expect that's what old Wadley said. I remember his wail at the meeting, which began. In fifty years' experience of scientific intercourse, it quite broke the old man up. Anything more about Challenger? Well, I'm a bacteriologist, you know. I live in a 900-diameter microscope. I can hardly claim to take serious notice of anything that I see with my naked eye. I'm a frontiersman from the extreme edge of the noble, and I feel quite out of place when I leave my study and come into touch with all you great, rough, hulking creatures. I'm too detached to talk scandal and yet its scientific conversationis. I have heard something of Challenger, for he is one of those men whom nobody can ignore. He's as clever as they make him. A full-charge battery of force and vitality, but a quarrelsome, ill-conditioned, fattest and unscrupulous at that. He had gone the length of faking some photographs over the South American business. You say he is a fattest. What is his particular fad? He has a thousand, but the latest is something about Weisman and evolution. He had a fearful row about it in Vienna, I believe. Can't you tell me the point? Not at the moment, but a translation of the proceedings exists. We have it filed at the office. Would you care to come? It's just what I want. I have to interview the fellow and I need some lead up to him. It's really awfully good of you to give me a lift. I'll go with you now if it's not too late. Half an hour later I was seated in the newspaper office with a huge tome in front of me, which had been opened at the article Weisman vs. Darwin with the subheading Spirited Protest at Vienna, lively proceedings. My scientific education, having been somewhat neglected, I was unable to follow the whole argument, but it was evident that the English professor had handled his subject in a very aggressive fashion, and had thoroughly annoyed his continental colleagues. Protests, uproar, and general appeal to the chairman, were three of the first brackets which caught my eye. Most of the matter might have been written in Chinese for any definite meaning that it conveyed to my brain. I wish you would translate it into English for me, I said, pathetically, to my helpmate. Well, it is a translation. Then I'd better try my luck with the original. It is certainly rather deep for Lehmann. If I could only get a single good, meaty sentence which seemed to convey some sort of definite human idea, it would serve my turn. Ah, yes, this one will do. I seem in a vague way almost to understand it. I'll copy it out. This shall be my link with the terrible professor. Nothing else I can do? Well, yes, I propose to write to him. If I could frame the letter here and use your address, it would give atmosphere. We'll have their fellow round here making a row and breaking the furniture. No, no, you'll see the letter. Nothing contentious, I assure you. Well, there's my chair and desk. You'll find paper there. I'd like to censor it before it goes. It took some doing, but I flatter myself that it wasn't such a bad job when it was finished. I read it aloud to the critical bacteriologist with some pride in my handiwork. Dear Professor Challenger, it said, as a humble student of nature I have always taken the most profound interest in your speculations as to the differences between Darwin and Weissman. I have recently had occasion to refresh my memory by rereading You Infernal Liar, murmured Tarp Henry. By rereading your masterly address at Vienna, that lucid and aborable statement seems to be the last word in the matter. There is one sentence in it, however, namely, I protest strongly against the insufferable and entirely dogmatic assertion that each separate id is a microcosm possessed of an historical architecture elaborated slowly through the series of generations. Have you no desire and view of later research to modify this statement? Do you not think that it is over accentuated? With your permission I would ask the favour of an interview, as I feel strongly upon the subject, and have certain suggestions which I could only elaborate in a personal conversation. With your consent I trust to have the honour of calling at eleven o'clock the day after tomorrow, Wednesday, morning. I remain, sir, with assurances of profound respect, yours very truly, Edward D. Malone. How's that? I asked triumphantly. Well, if your conscience can stand it, it has never failed me yet. But what do you mean to do? To get there, once I am in his room I may see some opening. I may even go the length of open confession. If he is a sportsman he will be tickled. Tickled, indeed. He's much more likely to do the tickling, chain mail, or an American football suit, and that's what you'll want. Well, goodbye. I'll have the answer for you here on Wednesday morning, if he ever deans to answer you. He is a violent, dangerous, cantankerous character, hated by everyone who comes across him, and the butt of the students so far as they dare to take a liberty with him. Perhaps it would be best for you if you never heard from the fellow at all. End of chapter. Chapter 3 of The Lost World This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This recording is by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Chapter 3 He is a perfectly impossible person. My friend's fear or hope was not destined to be realized. When I called on Wednesday there was a letter with the West Kensington Postmark upon it, and my name scrawled across the envelope in a handwriting which looked like a barbed wire railing. The contents were as follows. N. Moore Park, W. Sir, I have duly received your note, in which you claim to endorse my views, although I am not aware that they are dependent upon endorsement either from you or anyone else. You have ventured to use the word speculation with regard to my statement upon the subject of Darwinism, and I would call your attention to the fact that such a word and such a connection is offensive to a degree. The text convinces me, however, that you have sinned rather through ignorance and tactlessness than through malice, so I am content to pass the matter by. You quote an isolated sentence from my lecture, and appear to have some difficulty in understanding it. I should have thought that only a subhuman intelligence could have failed to grasp the point, but if it really needs amplification I shall consent to see you at the hour named, though visits and visitors of every sort are exceeding distasteful to me. As to your suggestion that I may modify my opinion, I would have you know that it is not my habit to do so after a deliberate expression of my mature views. You will kindly show the envelope of this letter to my man, Austin, when you call, as he has to take every precaution to shield me from the intrusive rascals who call themselves journalists. Yours faithfully, George Edward Challenger. This was the letter that I read aloud to Tarp Henry, who had come down early to hear the result of my venture. His only remark was, There is some new stuff, cuticura or something, which is better than arnica. Some people have such extraordinary notions of humor. It was nearly half-past ten before I had received my message, but a taxicab took me round in good time for my appointment. It was an imposing porticoad house at which we stopped, and the heavily curtain windows gave every indication of wealth upon the part of this formidable professor. The door was opened by an odd, swarthy, dried-up person of uncertain age, with a dark pilot jacket and brown leather gaiters. I found afterwards that he was the chauffeur, who filled the gaps left by a succession of fugitive butlers. He looked me up and down with a searching light blue eye. Expected, he asked. An appointment. Got your letter? I produced the envelope. Right. He seemed to be a person of few words. Following him down the passage, I was suddenly interrupted by a man who had been out of what proved to be the dining-room door. She was a bright, vivacious, dark-eyed lady, more French than English in her type. One moment, she said, You can wait, Austin. Step in here, sir. May I ask if you have met my husband before? No, madam. I have not had the honour. Then I apologise to you in advance. I must tell you that he is a person of few words. I must tell you that he is a perfectly impossible person. Absolutely impossible. If you are forewarned, then you shall be the more ready to make allowances. It is most considerate of you, madam. Get quickly out of the room if he seems inclined to be violent. Don't wait to argue with him. Several people have been injured through doing that. Afterwards there is a public scandal, and it reflects upon me and all of us. I suppose it wasn't about South America you wanted to see him. I could not lie to a lady. Dear me, this is his most dangerous subject. You won't believe a word he says. I'm sure I don't wonder. But don't tell him so, for it makes him very violent. Pretend to believe him, and you may get through all right. Remember he believes it himself. Of that you may be assured. A more honest man never lived. Don't wait any longer, or he may suspect. If you find him dangerous, really dangerous, ring the bell and hold him off until I come. Even at his worst I can usually control him. With these encouraging words, the lady handed me over to the taciturn Austin, who had waited like a bronze statue of discretion during our short interview, and I was conducted to the end of the passage. There was a tap at the door, a bull's bellow from within, and I was face to face with the professor. He sat in a rotating chair behind a broad table, which was covered with books, maps, and diagrams. As I entered, his seat spun round to face me. His appearance made me gasp. I was prepared for something strange, but not for so overpowering a personality as this. It was his size which took one's breath away, his size and his imposing presence. His head was enormous, the largest I have ever seen upon a human being. I am sure that his top hat, had I ever ventured to Donut, would have slipped over me entirely and rested on my shoulders. He had the face and beard which I associate with an Assyrian bull, the former floored, the latter so black as almost to have a suspicion of blue, spade-shaped, and rippling down over his chest. The hair was peculiar, plastered down in front in a long, curving wisp over his massive forehead. The eyes were blue-gray under great black tufts, very clear, very critical, and very masterful. A huge spread of shoulders and a chest like a barrel were the other parts of him which appeared above the table, save for two enormous hands covered with long black hair. This and a bellowing, roaring, rumbling sound made up my first impression of the notorious Professor Challenger. Well, said he with a most insolent stare. What now? I must keep up my deception for at least a little time longer, otherwise here was evidently an end of the interview. You were good enough to give me an appointment, sir, said I, humbly producing his envelope. He took my letter from his desk and laid it out before him. Oh, you are the young person who cannot understand plain English, are you? My general conclusions, you are good enough to approve, as I understand. Entirely, sir, entirely. I was very emphatic. Dear me, that strengthens my position very much, does it not? Your age and appearance make your support doubly valuable. Well, at least you are better than that herd of swine in Vienna, whose gregarious grunt is, however, not more offensive than the isolated effort of the British hog. He glared at me as the present representative of the beast. They seem to have behaved abominably, said I. I assure you that I can fight my own battles and that I have no possible need of your sympathy. Put me alone, sir, and with my back to the wall. G.E.C. is happiest then. Well, sir, let us do what we can to curtail this visit, which can hardly be agreeable to you, and is inexpressibly irksome to me. You had, as I have been led to believe, some comments to make upon the proposition which I advanced in my thesis. There was a brutal directness about his methods which made evasion difficult. I must still make play and wait for a better opening. And it seems simple enough at a distance. Oh, my Irish wits, could they not help me now, when I needed help so sorely. He transfixed me with two sharp, steely eyes. Come, come! he rumbled. I am, of course, a mere student, said I, with a fatuous smile. Hardly more, I might say, than an earnest inquirer. At the same time it seemed to me that you were little severe upon viceman in this matter. Has not the general evidence since that date tended to, well, to strengthen his position? What evidence! he spoke with a menacing calm. Well, of course, I am aware that there is not any what you might call definite evidence. I alluded merely to the trend of modern thought and the general scientific point of view, if I might so express it. He leaned forward with great earnestness. I suppose you are aware, said he, checking off points upon his fingers, that the cranial index is a constant factor. Naturally, said I, and that telegeny is still subjudice. Undoubtedly, and that the germplasm is different from the parthenogetic egg. Why, surely, I cried and gloried in my own audacity. But what does that prove? he asked in a gentle persuasive voice. Ah, what indeed, I murmured. What does it prove? Shall I tell you, he could? Pray do. It proves, he roared, with a sudden blast of fury, that you are the damnedest imposter in London, a vile-crawling journalist who has no more science than he has decency in his composition. He had sprung to his feet with a mad rage in his eyes. Even at that moment of tension I found time for amazement at the discovery that he was quite a short man, his head not higher than my shoulder, a stunted hercules whose tremendous vitality had all run to depth, breadth, and brain. Gibberish, he cried, leaning forward, with his fingers on the table and his face projecting. That's what I have been talking to you, sir, scientific gibberish. Did you think you could match cunning with me, you with your walnut of a brain? You think you are omnipotent, you infernal scribblers, don't you, that your praise can make a man and your blame can break him? We must all bow to you and try to get a favourable word, must we? This man shall have a leg up, and this man shall have a dressing down. Creeping vermin, I know you. You've got out of your station. Time was when your ears were clipped. You've lost your sense of proportion. Swollen gas bags? I'll keep you in your proper place. Yes, sir, you haven't got over G.E.C. There's one man who is still your master. He warned you off, but if you will come, by the Lord you do it at your own risk. Forfeit, my good Mr. Malone, I claim forfeit. You have played a rather dangerous game, and it strikes me that you have lost it. Look here, sir, said I, backing to the door and opening it. You can be as abusive as you like, but there is a limit. You shall not assault me. Shall I not? He was slowly advancing in a peculiarly menacing way, but he stopped now and put his big hands into the side pockets of a rather boyish short jacket which he wore. I have thrown several of you out of the house. You will be the fourth or fifth. Three pound fifteen each. That is how it averaged. Expensive but very necessary. Now, sir, why should you not follow your brethren? I rather think you must. He resumed his unpleasant and stealthy advance, pointing his toes as he walked like a dancing master. I could have bolted for the hall door, but it would have been too ignominious. Besides, a little glow of righteous anger was springing up within me. I have been hopelessly in the wrong before, but this man's menaces were putting me on the right. I'll trouble you to keep your hands off, sir. I'll not stand it. Dear me! His black mustache lifted, and a white fang twinkled in a sneer. You won't stand it, eh? Don't be such a fool, Professor! I cried. What can you hope for? I'm fifteen stone as hard as nails, and play centre three quarter every Saturday for the London Irish. I'm not the man. It was at that moment that he rushed me. It was lucky that I had opened the door, or we should have gone through it. We did a Catherine wheel together down the passage. Somehow we gathered up a chair upon our way, and bounded on with it towards the street. My mouth was full of his beard. Our arms were locked, our bodies intertwined, and that infernal chair radiated its legs all round us. The watchful Austin had thrown open the hall door. We went with a back somersault down the front steps. I have seen the two Macs attempt something of the kind at the halls, but it appears to take some practice to do it without hurting oneself. The chair went to matchwood at the bottom, and we rolled apart into the gutter. He sprang to his feet, waving his fists, and wheezing like an asthmatic. Addie-nuff! he panted. You infernal bully! I cried, as I gathered myself together. Then and there we should have tried the thing out, for he was effervescing with fight, but fortunately I was rescued from an odious situation. A policeman was beside us, his notebook in his hand. What's all this? You ought to be ashamed! said the policeman. It was the most rational remark which I had heard in Enmore Park. Well, he insisted, turning to me, what is it then? This man attacked me, said I. Did you attack him? asked the policeman. The professor breathed hard and said nothing. It's not the first time, either, said the policeman, severely, shaking his head. You were in trouble last month for the same thing. You've blackened this young man's eye. Do you give him in charge, sir? I relented. No, said I. I do not. What's that? said the policeman. I was to blame myself. I intruded upon him. He gave me fair warning. The policeman snapped up his notebook. Don't let us have any more such goings on, said he. Now then, move on there, move on. This to a butcher's boy, a maid and one or two loafers who had collected. He clumped heavily down the street, driving this little flock before him. The professor looked at me, and there was something humorous at the back of his eyes. Come in, said he. I've not done with you yet. The speech had a sinister sound, but I followed him nonetheless into the house. The man served at Austin like a wooden image closed the door behind us. CHAPTER IV It's just the very biggest thing in the world. Hardly was it shut when Mrs. Challenger darted out from the dining-room. The small woman was in a furious temper. She barred her husband's way like an enraged chicken in front of a bulldog. It was evident that she had seen my exit, but had not observed my return. You brute, George! she screamed. You've hurt that nice young man. He jerked backwards with his thumb. Here he is, safe and sound behind me. She was confused, but not unduly so. I am so sorry I didn't see you. I assure you, madam, that it is all right. He has marked your poor face. Oh, George, what a brute you are! Nothing but scandals from one end of the week to the other. Everyone hating and making fun of you. You've finished my patience. This ends it. Dirty linen, he rumbled. It's not a secret, she cried. Do you suppose that the whole street, the whole of London for that matter, get away, Austin. We don't want you here. Do you suppose they don't all talk about you? Where is your dignity? You, a man who should have been regious professor at a great university, with a thousand students all revering you. Where is your dignity, George? How about yours, my dear? You try me too much. A ruffian, a common brawling ruffian, that's what you have become. Be good, Jesse. A roaring, raging bully. That's done it, stool of penance, said he. To my amazement he stooped, picked her up, and placed her sitting upon a high pedestal of black marble in the angle of the hall. It was at least seven feet high, and so thin that she could hardly balance upon it. A more absurd object than she presented, cocked up there with her face convulsed with anger, her feet dangling, and her body rigid for fear of an upset, I could not imagine. Let me down! she wailed. Say please. You brute, George, let me down this instant. Come into the study, Mr. Malone. Really, sir, said I, looking at the lady. Here's Mr. Malone pleading for you, Jesse. Say please, and down you come. Oh, you brute! Please, please! You must behave yourself, dear. Mr. Malone is a pressman. He will have it all in his rag tomorrow, and sell an extra dozen among our neighbors. Strange story of high life. You felt fairly high on that pedestal, did you not? Then a subtitle. Glimpse of a Singular Menage. He's a foul feeder, is Mr. Malone. A carrion-eater, like all of his kind. Porcus excrebe diabile. A swine from the devil's herd. That's it, Malone. What? You are really intolerable, said I. He'd bellowed with laughter. We shall have a coalition presently. He'd boomed, looking from his wife to me, and puffing out his enormous chest. Then suddenly, altering his tone. Excuse us, frivolous family bandinage, Mr. Malone. I called you back for some more serious purpose than to mix you up with our little domestic pleasantries. Run away, little woman, and don't fret. He placed a huge hand upon each of her shoulders. All that you say is perfectly true. I should be a better man if I did what you advise, but I shouldn't be quite George Edward Challenger. There are plenty of better men, my dear, but only one, G.E.C., so make the best of him. He suddenly gave her a resounding kiss, which embarrassed me even more than his violence had done. Now, Mr. Malone, he continued with a great accession of dignity. This way, if you please. We re-entered the room which we had left so tumultuously ten minutes before. The professor closed the door carefully behind us, motioned me into an armchair, and pushed a cigar-box under my nose. Real San Juan Colorado, he said. Excitable people like you are the better for narcotics. Heavens, don't bite it. Cut. I'd cut with reverence. Now, lean back, and listen attentively to whatever I may care to say to you. If any remark should occur to you, you can reserve it for some more opportune time. First of all, as to your return, I would like to thank you for all your hard work. First of all, as to your return to my house after your most justifiable expulsion. He protruded his beard and stared at me as one who challenges and invites contradiction. After, as I say, your well-merited expulsion. The reason lay in your answer to that most officious policeman, in which I seemed to discern some glimmering of good feeling upon your part. More at any rate than I am accustomed to associate with your profession. In admitting that the fault of the incident lay with you, you gave some evidence of a certain mental detachment in breadth of view, which attracted my favorable notice. The subspecies of the human race to which you unfortunately belong has always been below my mental horizon. Your words brought you suddenly above it. You swam up into my serious notice. For this reason I asked you to return with me, as I was minded to make your further acquaintance. You will kindly deposit your ash in the small Japanese tray on the bamboo table, which stands at your left elbow. All this he boomed forth like a professor addressing his class. He had swung round his revolving chair so as to face me, and he sat all puffed out like an enormous bullfrog, his head laid back and his eyes half covered by supercilious lids. Now he suddenly turned himself sideways, and all I could see of him was tangled hair with a red protruding ear. He was scratching about among the litter of papers upon his desk. He faced me presently with what looked like a very tattered sketchbook in his hand. I am going to talk to you about South America, said he. No comments, if you please. First of all, I wish you to understand that nothing I tell you now is to repeat it in any public way, unless you have my express permission. That permission will, in all human probability, never be given. Is that clear? It is very hard, said I, surely a judicious account. He replaced the notebook upon the table. That ends it, said he. I wish you a very good morning. No, no, I cried. I submit to any conditions. So far as I can see I have no choice. None in the world, said he. Well then, I promise. Word of Honor? Word of Honor. He looked at me with doubt in his insolent eyes. After all, what do I know about your honor? said he. Upon my words, sir, I cried angrily. You take very great liberties. I have never been so insulted in my life. He seemed more interested than annoyed at my outbreak. Round-headed, he muttered, breaky, sephalic, grey-eyed, black-haired, with suggestion of the negroid. Celtic, I presume. I am an Irishman, sir. Irish, Irish? Yes, sir. That, of course, explains it. Let me see. You have given me your promise that my confidence will be respected? That confidence, I say, will be far from complete. But I am prepared to give you a few indications which will be of interest. In the first place, you are probably aware that two years ago I made a journey to South America, one which will be classical in the scientific history of the world. The object of my journey was to verify some conclusions of Wallace and of Bates, which could only be done by observing their reported facts under the same conditions in which they themselves noted them. If my expedition had no other results it would still have been noteworthy. But a curious incident occurred to me while there, which opened up an entirely fresh line of inquiry. You are aware, or probably in this half-educated age, you are not aware, that the country round some parts of the Amazon is still only partially explored, and that a great number of tributaries, some of them entirely uncharted, run into the main river. It was my business to visit this little-known backcountry and to examine its fauna, which furnished me with the materials for several chapters for that great and monumental work upon zoology which will be my life's justification. I was returning, my work accomplished, when I had occasioned to spend a night at a small Indian village at a point where a certain tributary, the name and position of which I withhold, opens into the main river. The natives were Kukama Indians, an amiable but degraded race, with mental powers hardly superior to the average Londoner. I had affected some cures among them upon my way up the river, and had impressed them considerably with my personality, so that I was not surprised to find myself eagerly awaited upon my return. I gathered from their signs that someone had urgent need of my medical services, and I followed the chief to one of his huts. When I entered, I found that the sufferer to whose aid I had been summoned had that instant expired. He was, to my surprise, no Indian but a white man. Indeed, I may say a very white man, for he was flexing-haired, and had some characteristics of an albino. He was clad in rags, was very emaciated, and bore every trace of prolonged hardship. So far as I could understand the account of the natives, he was a complete stranger to them, and had come upon their village through the woods alone, and in the last stage of exhaustion. The man's nap-stack lay beside the couch, and I examined the contents. His name was written upon a tab within it, Maple White, Lake Avenue, Detroit, Michigan. It is a name to which I am prepared always to lift my hat. It is not too much to say that it will rank level with my own when the final credit of this business comes to be apportioned. From the contents of the nap-stack, it was evident that this man had been an artist and poet in search of effects. There were scraps of verse. I do not profess to be a judge of such things, but they appeared to me to be singularly wanting in merit. There was also some rather commonplace pictures of river scenery, a paint-box, a box of colored chalks, some brushes, that curved bone which lies upon my inkstand, a volume of Baxter's moths and butterflies, a cheap revolver and a few cartridges. Of personal equipment he either had none or he had lost it in his journey. Such were the total effects of this strange American bohemian. I was turning away from him when I observed that something projected from the front of his ragged jacket. It was this sketchbook which was as dilapidated then as you see it now. Indeed, I can assure you that a first folio of Shakespeare could not be treated with greater reverence than this relic has been since it came into my possession. I hand it to you now, and I ask you to take it page by page and to examine the contents. He helped himself to a cigar and leaned back with a fiercely critical pair of eyes, taking note of the effect which this document would produce. I had opened the volume with some expectation of a revelation, though of what nature I could not imagine. The first page was disappointing however as it contained nothing but the picture of a very fat man in a pea jacket with the legend Jimmy Culver on the mailboat written beneath it. There followed several pages which were filled with small sketches of Indians and their ways. Then came a picture of a cheerful and corpulent ecclesiastic in a shovel hat, sitting opposite a very thin European, and the inscription Lunch with Fra Cristofero at Rosario. Studies of women and babies accounted for several more pages, and then there was an unbroken series of animal drawings with such explanations as Manatee upon Sandbank, Turtles and their Eggs, Black a Judy under a Mariti Palm, the matter disclosing some sort of pig-like animal. And finally came a double page of studies of long-snouted and very unpleasant Sarians. I could make nothing of it and said so to the professor. Surely these are only crocodiles. Alligators, alligators, there's hardly such a thing as a true crocodile in South America, the distinction between them. I meant that I could see nothing unusual, nothing to justify what you have said. He smiled serenely. Try the next page, said he. I was still unable to sympathize. It was a full-page sketch of a landscape roughly tinted in color, the kind of painting which an open-air artist takes as a guide to a future more elaborate effort. There was a pale green foreground of feathery vegetation, which sloped upwards and ended in a line of cliffs, dark red in color, and curiously ribbed like some basaltic formations which I have seen. They extended in an unbroken wall right across the background. At one point was an isolated pyramidal rock crowned by a great tree, which appeared to be separated by a cleft from the main crag. Behind it all, a blue tropical sky. A thin green line of vegetation fringed the summit of the ruddy cliff. Well, he asked. It is no doubt a curious formation, said I, but I am not geologist enough to say that it is wonderful. Wonderful, he repeated. It is unique. It is incredible. The one on earth has ever dreamed of such a possibility. Now the next. I turned it over and gave an exclamation of surprise. There was a full page picture of the most extraordinary creature that I had ever seen. It was the wild dream of an opium smoker, a vision of delirium. The head was like that of a fowl, the body that of a bloated lizard. The trailing tail was furnished with upward turned spikes, and the curved back was edged with a high serrated fringe, which looked like a dozen cox waddles placed behind each other. In front of this creature was an absurd mannequin or dwarf in human form who stood staring at it. Well, what do you think of that? cried the professor, rubbing his hands with an air of triumph. It is monstrous grotesque. But what made him draw such an animal? Trade gin, I should think. Oh, that's the best explanation you can give, is it? Well, sir, what is yours? The obvious one that the creature exists. That is actually sketched from the life. I should have laughed only that I had a vision of our doing another Catherine wheel down the passage. No doubt, said I, no doubt, as one humours an imbecile. I confess, however, I added, that this tiny human figure puzzles me. If it were an Indian we could set it down as evidence of some pygmy race in America, but it appears to be a European in a sun hat. The professor snorted like an angry buffalo. You really touched the limit, said he. You enlarge my view of the possible. Cerebral peresis, mental inertia. Wonderful. He was too absurd to make me angry. Indeed, it was a waste of energy, for if you were going to be angry with this man, you would be angry all the time. I contented myself with smiling wearily. It struck me that the man was small, said I. Look here! he cried, leaning forward and dabbing a great hairy sausage of a finger onto the picture. You see that plant behind the animal? I suppose you thought it was a dandelion or a Brussels sprout. What? Well, it is a vegetable ivory palm, and they run to about fifty or sixty feet. Don't you see that the man is put in for a purpose? He couldn't really have stood in front of that brute and lived to draw it. He sketched himself in to give a scale of heights. He was, we will say, over five feet high. The tree is ten times bigger, which is what one would expect. Good heavens! I cried. Then you think the beast was— Why, chairing cross-station would hardly make a kennel for such a brute. Apart from exaggeration he is certainly a well-grown specimen, said the professor complacently. But I cried. Surely the whole experience of the human race is not to be set aside on a count of a single sketch. I had turned over the leaves and ascertained that there was nothing more in the book. A single sketch by a wandering American artist who may have done it under hashish or in the delirium of fever or simply in order to gratify a freakish imagination. You can't, as a man of science, defend such a position as that. For answer the professor took a book down from a shelf. This is an excellent monograph by my gifted friend Ray Lancaster, said he. There is an illustration here which would interest you. Ah, yes, here it is. The inscription beneath it runs. Probable appearance in life of the Jurassic dinosaur Stegosaurus. The hind leg alone is twice as tall as a full-grown man. Well, what do you make of that? He handed me the open book. I started, as I looked at the picture. In this reconstructed animal of a dead world there was certainly a very great resemblance to the sketch of the unknown artist. That is certainly remarkable, said I. But you won't admit that it is final? Surely it might be a coincidence, or this American may have seen a picture of the kind and carried it in his memory. It would be likely to recur to a man in a delirium. Very good, said the professor indulgently. We leave it at that. I will now ask you to look at this bone. He handed over the one which he had already described as part of the dead man's possessions. It was about six inches long and thicker than my thumb, with some indications of dried cartilage at one end of it. So what known creature does that bone belong? Asked the professor. I examined it with care and tried to recall some half-forgotten knowledge. It might be a very thick human collar bone, I said. My companion waved his hand in contemptuous deprecation. The human collar bone is curved. This is straight. There is a groove upon its surface, showing that a great tendon played across it, which could not be the case with a clavicle. Then I must confess that I don't know what it is. You need not be ashamed to expose your ignorance. For I don't suppose the whole South Kensington staff could give a name to it. He took a little bone the size of a bean out of a pillbox. So far as I am a judge, this human bone is the analog of the one which you hold in your hand. That will give you some idea of the size of the creature. You will observe from the cartilage that this is no fossil specimen, but recent. What do you say to that? Surely in an elephant—he winced as if in pain. Don't. Don't talk of elephants in South America. Even in these days of bored schools—well, I interrupted. Any large South American animal—a tapir, for example. You may take it, young man, that I am versed in the elements of my business. This is not a conceivable bone either of a tapir or any other creature known to zoology. It belongs to a very large, a very strong, and by all analogy, a very fierce animal which exists upon the face of the earth, but has not yet come under the notice of science. You are still unconvinced? I am at least deeply interested. Then your case is not hopeless. I feel that there is reason lurking in you somewhere, so we will patiently grope round for it. You will now leave the dead American and proceed with my narrative. You can imagine that I could hardly come away from the Amazon without probing deeper into the matter. There were indications as to the direction from which the dead traveler had come. Indian legends would alone have bid my guide, for I found that rumors of a strange land were common among all the riverine tribes. You have heard no doubt of curapurae? Never. Curapurae is the spirit of the woods. Something terrible, something malevolent, something to be avoided. None can describe its shape or nature, but it is a word of terror along the Amazon. Now all tribes agree as to the direction in which curapurae lives. It was the same direction from which the American had come. Something terrible lay that way. It was my business to find out what it was. What did you do? My flippancy was all gone. This massive man compelled one's attention and respect. I overcame the extreme reluctance of the natives, a reluctance which extends even to talk upon the subject, and by judicious persuasion and gifts aided I will admit by some threats of coercion. I got two of them to act as guides. After many adventures which I need not describe, and after travelling a distance which I will not mention, in a direction which I withhold, we came at last to a tract of country which has never been described, nor indeed, visited saved by my unfortunate predecessor. Would you kindly look at this? He headed me a photograph half plate size. The unsatisfactory appearance of it is due to the fact, said he, that on descending the river the boat was upset and the case which contained the undeveloped films was broken, with disastrous results. Nearly all of them were totally ruined, an irreparable loss. This is one of the few which partially escaped. This explanation of deficiencies or abnormalities you will kindly accept. There was talk of faking. I am not in a mood to argue such a point. The photograph was certainly very off-coloured. An unkind critic might easily have misinterpreted that dim surface. It was a dull grey landscape, and as I gradually deciphered the details of it I realised that it represented a long and enormously high line of cliffs, exactly like an immense cataract seen in the distance, with a sloping tree-clad plane in the foreground. I believe it is the same place as the painted picture, said I. It is the same place, the Professor answered. I found traces of the fellow's camp. Now look at this. It was a nearer view of the same scene, though the photograph was extremely defective. I could distinctly see the isolated tree-crowned pinnacle of rock which was detached from the crag. I have no doubt of it at all, said I. Well, that is something gained, said he. We progress, do we not? Now will you please look at the top of that rocky pinnacle? Do you observe something there? An enormous tree. But on the tree. A large bird, said I. He handed me a lens. Yes, I said, peering through it. A large bird stands on the tree. It appears to have a considerable beak. I should say it was a pelican. I cannot congratulate you upon your eyesight, said the Professor. It is not a pelican, nor indeed is it a bird. It may interest you to know that I succeeded in shooting that particular specimen. It was the only absolute proof of my experiences which I was able to bring away with me. You have it, then? Here at last was tangible corroboration. I had it. It was, unfortunately, lost with so much else in the same boat accident which ruined my photographs. I clutched at it as it disappeared in the swirl of the rapids, and part of its wing was left in my hand. I was insensible when washed ashore, but the miserable remnant of my superb specimen was still intact. I now lay it before you. From a drawer he produced what seemed to me to be the upper portion of the wing of a large bat. It was at least two feet in length, a curved bone with a membranous veil beneath it. A monstrous bat, I suggested. Nothing of the sort, said the Professor severely. Living as I do in an educated and scientific atmosphere I could not have conceived that the first principles of zoology were so little known. Is it possible that you do not know the elementary fact in comparative anatomy that the wing of a bird is really the forearm while the wing of a bat consists of three elongated fingers with membranes between? Now, in this case, the bone is certainly not the forearm, and you can see for yourself that this is a single membrane hanging upon a single bone, and therefore that it cannot belong to a bat. But if it is neither bird nor bat, what is it? My small stock of knowledge was exhausted. I really do not know, said I. He opened the standard work to which he had already referred me. Here, said he, pointing to the picture of an extraordinary flying monster, is an excellent reproduction of the dimorphodon, or pterodactyl, a flying reptile of the Jurassic period. On the next page is a diagram of the mechanism of its wing. Kindly compare it with the specimen in your hand. A wave of amazement passed over me as I looked. I was convinced. There could be no getting away from it. The cumulative proof was overwhelming. The sketch, the photographs, the narrative, and now the actual specimen. The evidence was complete. I said so. I said so warmly, for I felt that the Professor was an ill-used man. He leaned back in his chair with drooping eyelids and a tolerant smile, basking in the sudden gleam of sunshine. It's just the very biggest thing that I ever heard of, said I, though it was my journalistic rather than my scientific enthusiasm that was roused. It is colossal! You are a Columbus of science who has discovered a lost world. I'm awfully sorry if I seemed to doubt you. It was all so unthinkable. But I understand evidence when I see it, and this should be good enough for any one. The Professor purred with satisfaction. And then, sir, what did you do next? It was the wet season, Mr. Malone, and my stores were exhausted. I explored some portion of this huge cliff, but I was unable to find any way to scale it. The pyramidal rock upon which I saw and shot the pterodactyl was more accessible. Being something of a cragsman, I did manage to get halfway to the top of that. From that height I had a better idea of the plateau upon the top of the crags. It appeared to be very large. Neither to east nor west could I see any end to the vista of green-capped cliffs. Below it is a swampy, jungly region full of snakes, insects, and fever. It is a natural protection to this singular country. Did you see any other trace of life? No, sir. I did not. But during the week that we lay encamped at the base of the cliff, we heard some very strange noises from above. But the creature that the American drew, how do you account for that? We can only suppose that he must have made his way to the summit and seen it there. We know therefore that there is a way up. We know equally that it must be a very difficult one. Otherwise the creatures would have come down and overrun the surrounding country. Surely that is clear. But how did they come to be there? I do not think that the problem is a very obscure one, said the professor. There can only be one explanation. South America is, as you may have heard, a granite continent. At this single point in the interior there has been, in some far distant age, a great sudden volcanic upheaval. These cliffs, I may remark, are basaltic and therefore plutonic. An area, as large perhaps as Sussex, has been lifted up on block with all its living contents and cut off by perpendicular precipices of a hardness which defies erosion from all the rest of the continent. What is the result? Why, the ordinary laws of nature are suspended. The various checks which influence the struggle for existence in the world at large are all neutralized or altered. Creatures survive which would otherwise disappear. You will observe that both the pterodactyl and the stegosaurus are Jurassic and therefore of a great age in the order of life. They have been artificially conserved by those strange accidental conditions. But surely your evidence is conclusive. You have only to lay it before the proper authorities. So in my simplicity I had imagined, said the Professor bitterly. I can only tell you that it was not so that I was met at every turn by incredulity, born partly of stupidity and partly of jealousy. It is not my nature, sir, to cringe to any man or to seek to prove a fact if my word has been doubted. After the first I have not condescended to show such cooperative proofs as I possess. The subject became hateful to me. I would not speak of it. When men like yourself, who represent the foolish curiosity of the public, came to disturb my privacy, I was unable to meet them with dignified reserve. By nature I am, I admit, somewhat fiery, and under provocation I am inclined to be violent. I fear you may have remarked it. I nursed my eye and was silent. My wife is frequently remonstrated with me upon the subject, and yet I fancy that any man of honour would feel the same. Tonight, however, I propose to give an extreme example of the control of the will over the emotions. I invite you to be present at the exhibition. He handed me a card from his desk. You will perceive that Mr. Percival Waldron, a naturalist of some popular repute, is announced to lecture at 8.30 at the Zoological Institute's Hall upon The Record of the Ages. I have been specially invited to be present upon the platform, and to move a vote of thanks to the lecturer. While doing so, I shall make it my business, with infinite tact and delicacy, to throw out a few remarks which may arouse the interest of the audience, and cause some of them to desire to go more deeply into the matter. Nothing contentious, you understand, but only an indication that there are greater deeps beyond. I shall hold myself strongly in leash, and see whether by this self-restraint I attain a more favourable result. And I may come, I asked eagerly. Why, surely, he answered cordially. He had an enormously massive genial manner, which was almost as overpowering as his violence. His smile of benevolence was a wonderful thing, when his cheeks would suddenly bunch into two red apples, between his half-closed eyes and his great black beard. By all means, come. It will be a comfort to me to know that I have one ally in the hall, however inefficient and ignorant of the subject he may be. I fancy there will be a large audience, for Waldron, though an absolute charlatan, has a considerable popular following. Now, Mr. Malone, I have given you rather more of my time than I had intended. The individual must not monopolize what is meant for the world. I shall be pleased to see you at the lecture tonight. In the meantime you will understand that no public use is to be made of any of the material that I have given you. But, Mr. McArdle, my news editor, you know, will want to know what I have done. Tell him what you like. You can say, among other things, that if he sends anyone else to intrude upon me I shall call upon him with a writing whip. But I leave it to you that nothing of all this appears in print. Very good. Then the zoological institute's hall at eight thirty to-night. I had a last impression of red cheeks, blue rippling beard, and intolerant eyes, as he waved me out of the room. With the physical shocks incidental to my first interview with Professor Challenger, and the mental ones which accompanied the second, I was a somewhat demoralized journalist by the time I found myself in Inmore Park once more. In my aching head the one thought was throbbing that there really was truth in this man's story, that it was of tremendous consequence, and that it would work up into inconceivable copy for the gazette when I could obtain permission to use it. A taxicab was waiting at the end of the road, so I sprang into it, and drove down to the office. McArdle was at his post, as usual. Well, he cried expectantly. What may it run to? I'm thinking, young man, you have been in the wars. Don't tell me that he assaulted you. We had a little difference at first. What a man it is! What did you do? Well, he became more reasonable, and we had a chat. But I got nothing out of him. Nothing for publication. I'm not so sure about that. You got a black eye out of him, and that's for a publication. We can't have this reign of terror, Mr. Malone. We must bring the man to his bearings. I'll have a literate on him to-morrow that will raise a blister. Just give me the material, and I will engage to brand a fellow for ever. Professor Munchausen. How's that for an inset headline? Sir John Mandevoe Redivivis. Cagliostro. All the imposters and bullies in history. I'll show him up for the fraud he is. I wouldn't do that, sir. Why not? Because he is not a fraud at all. What! roared McArdle. You don't mean to say that you really believe this stuff of his about mammoths and mastodons and great sea-sarpens. Well, I don't know about that. I don't think he makes any claims of that kind. But I do believe he has got something new. Then for heaven's sakes, man, write it up. I'm longing to, but all I know he gave me in confidence and on condition that I didn't. I condensed into a few sentences the professor's narrative. That's how it stands. McArdle looked deeply incredulous. Well, Mr. Malone, he said at last. About the scientific meeting to-night, there can be no privacy about that anyhow. I don't suppose any paper will want to report it, for Waldron has been reported already a dozen times, and no one is aware that Challenger will speak. We may get a scoop if we are lucky. You'll be there in any case, so you'll just give us a pretty full report. I'll keep space up to midnight. My day was a busy one, and I had an early dinner at the savage club with Tarp Henry, to whom I gave some account of my adventures. He listened with a skeptical smile on his gaunt face, and roared with laughter on hearing that the professor had convinced me. My dear chap, things don't happen like that in real life. People don't stumble upon enormous discoveries and then lose their evidence. Leave that to the novelists. The fellow is as full of tricks as the monkey house at the zoo. It's all bosh. But the American poet? He never existed. I saw his sketchbook. Challenger's sketchbook. You think he drew that animal? Of course he did. Who else? Well then, the photographs. There was nothing in the photographs by your own admission you only saw a bird. A pterodactyl. That's what he says. He put the pterodactyl into your head. Well then, the bones? First, one out of an Irish stew. Second, one vamped up for the occasion. If you are clever and know your business, you can fake a bone as easily as you can a photograph. I began to feel uneasy. Perhaps after all, I had been premature in my acquiescence. Then I had a sudden happy thought. Will you come to the meeting? I asked. Tarp Henry looked thoughtful. He is not a popular person, the genial Challenger, said he. A lot of people have accounts to settle with him. I should say he is about the best-hated man in London. If the medical students turn out there will be no end of a rag. I don't want to get into a bear-garden. You might at least do him the justice to hear him state his own case. Well, perhaps it's only fair. All right, I'm your man for the evening. When we arrived at the hall we found a much greater concourse than I had expected. A line of electric brohems discharged their little cargos of white-bearded professors while the dark stream of humbler pedestrians who crowded through the arched doorway showed that the audience would be popular as well as scientific. Indeed, it became evident to us as soon as we had taken our seats that a youthful and even boyish spirit was abroad in the gallery and the back portions of the hall. Looking behind me I could see rows of faces in the familiar medical student type. Apparently the great hospitals at each sent down their contingent. The behaviour of the audience at present was good-humoured, but mischievous. Scraps of popular songs were coerced with an enthusiasm which was a strange prelude to a scientific lecture, and there was already a tendency to personal chaff which promised a jovial evening to others, however embarrassing it might be to the recipients of these dubious honours. Thus, when old Dr. Meldrum, with his well-known curly-brimmed opera hat, appeared upon the platform, there was such a universal query of, where did you get that tile, that he hurriedly removed it, and concealed it furtively under his chair. When gouty Professor Wadley limped down to his seat, there was general affectionate inquiries from all parts of the hall as to the exact state of his poor toe, which caused him obvious embarrassment. The greatest demonstration of all, however, was at the entrance of my new acquaintance, Professor Challenger, when he passed down to take his place at the extreme end of the front row of the platform. Such a yell of welcome broke forth when his black beard first protruded round the corner, that I began to suspect Tarp Henry was right in his surmise, and that this assemblage was there not merely for the sake of the lecture, but because it had got rumoured abroad that the famous Professor would take part in the proceedings. There was some sympathetic laughter on his entrance, among the front benches of well-dressed spectators, as though the demonstration of the students in this instance was not unwelcome to them. That greeting was, indeed, a frightful outburst of sound, the uproar of the carnivora cage when the step of the bucket-bearing keeper is heard in the distance. There was an offensive tone in it, perhaps, and yet in the main it struck me as mere riotous outcry, the noisy reception of one who amused and interested them, rather than of one they disliked or despised. Challenger smiled with weary and tolerant contempt, as a kindly man would meet the yapping of a litter of puppies. He sat slowly down, blew out his chest, passed his hand caressingly down his beard, and looked with drooping eyelids and supercilious eyes at the crowded hall before him. The uproar of his advent had not yet died away when Professor Ronald Muray, the chairman, and Mr. Waldron, the lecturer, threaded their way to the front, and the proceedings began. Professor Muray will, I am sure, excuse me if I say that he has the common fault of most Englishmen of being inaudible. Why on earth people who have something to say which is worth hearing should not take the slight trouble to learn how to make it heard is one of the strange mysteries of modern life. Their methods are as reasonable as to try to pour some precious stuff from the spring to the reservoir through a non-conducting pipe, which could by the least effort be opened. Professor Muray made several profound remarks to his white tie and to the water carafe upon the table, with the humerus twinkling aside to the silver candlestick upon his right. Then he sat down, and Mr. Waldron, the famous popular lecturer, rose amid a general murmur of applause. He was a stern, gaunt man with a harsh voice, and an aggressive manner, but he had the merit of knowing how to assimilate the ideas of other men, and to pass them on in a way which was intelligible and even interesting to the lay public, with a happy knack of being funny about the most unlikely objects, so that the precession of the equinox or the formation of a vertebrate became a highly humorous process as treated by him. It was a bird's-eye view of creation, as interpreted by science, which, in language always clear and sometimes picturesque, he unfolded before us. He told us of the globe, a huge mass of flaming gas, flaring through the heavens. Then he pictured the solidification, the cooling, the wrinkling which formed the mountains, the steam which turned to water, the slow preparation of the stage upon which was to be played the inexplicable drama of life. On the origin of life itself he was discreetly vague. That the germs of it could hardly have survived the original roasting was, he declared, fairly certain. Therefore it had come later. Had it built itself out of the cooling inorganic elements of the globe? Very likely. Had the germs of it arrived from outside upon a meteor? It was hardly conceivable. On the whole the wisest man was the least dogmatic upon the point. We could not, or at least we had not, succeeded up to date in making organic life in our laboratories out of inorganic materials. The gulf between the dead and the living was something which our chemistry could not as yet bridge. But there was a higher and subtler chemistry of nature which, working with great forces over long epics, might well produce results which were impossible for us. There the matter must be left. This brought the lecturer to the great ladder of animal life, beginning low down in mollusks and feeble sea creatures, then up, rung by rung, through reptiles and fishes, till at last we came to a kangaroo rat, a creature which brought forth its young alive. The direct ancestor of all mammals, and presumably therefore of every one in the audience. No, no, from a skeptical student in the back row. If the young gentleman in the red tie who cried no, no, and who presumably claimed to have been hatched out of an egg, would wait upon him after the lecture he would be glad to see such a curiosity, laughter. It was strange to think that the climax of all the age-long process of nature had been the creation of that gentleman in the red tie. But had the process stopped? Was this gentleman to be taken as the final type, the be-all and end-all of development? He hoped that he would not hurt the feelings of the gentleman in the red tie if he maintained that, whatever virtues that gentleman might possess in private life, still the vast processes of the universe were not fully justified if they were to end entirely in his production. Evolution was not a spent force, but one still working and even greater achievements were in store. Having thus amid a general titter, played very prettily with his interrupter, the lecturer went back to his picture of the past, the drying of the seas, the emergence of the sand-bank, the sluggish, viscous life which lay upon their margins, the overcrowded lagoons, the tendency of the sea-creatures to take refuge upon the mud-flats, the abundance of food awaiting them, their consequent enormous growth. Hence, ladies and gentlemen, he added, that frightful brood of sariens which still affright our eyes when seen in the wielden or in the solenhofen slates, but which were fortunately extinct long before the first appearance of mankind upon this planet. Question! boomed a voice from the platform. Mr. Waldrum was a strict disciplinarian with a gift of acid humor as exemplified upon the gentleman with the red tie, which made it perilous to interrupt him, but this interjection appeared to him so absurd that he was at a loss how to deal with it. No looks the Shakespearean who is confronted by a rancid Baconian, or the astronomer who was assailed by a flat earth fanatic. He paused for a moment, and then, raising his voice, repeated slowly the words, which were extinct before the coming of man. Question! boomed the voice once more. Waldrum looked with amazement along the line of professors upon the platform, until his eyes fell upon the figure of Challenger, who leaned back in his chair with closed eyes and an amused expression as if he were smiling in his sleep. I see, said Waldrum with a shrug, it is my friend Professor Challenger, and amid laughter he renewed his lecture as if this was a final explanation and no more need be said. But the incident was far from being closed. Whatever path the lecturer took amid the wilds of the past seemed invariably to lead him to some assertion as to extinct or prehistoric life which instantly brought the same bull's bellow from the professor. The audience began to anticipate it, and to roar with delight when it came. The packed benches of students joined in, and every time Challenger's beard opened, before any sound could come forth, there was a yell of question, from a hundred voices, and an answering counter-cry of order and shame from as many more. Waldrum, though a hardened lecturer and a strong man, became rattled. He hesitated, stammered, repeated himself, got snarled in a long sentence, and finally turned furiously upon the cause of his troubles. This is really intolerable, he cried, glaring across the platform. I must ask you, Professor Challenger, to cease these ignorant and unmanorly interruptions. There was a hush over the hall. The students rigid with delight at seeing the high gods on Olympus quarreling among themselves. Challenger levered his bulky figure slowly out of his chair. I must in turn ask you, Mr. Waldrum, he said, to cease to make assertions which are not in strict accordance with scientific fact. The words unleashed a tempest. Shame, shame! Give him a hearing! Put him out! Shove him off the platform! Fair play! emerged from the general roar of amusement or execration. The chairman was on his feet, flapping both his hands and bleeding excitedly. Professor Challenger, personal views later! were the solid peaks above his clouds of inaudible mother. The interrupter bowed, smiled, stroked his beard and relapsed into his chair. Waldrum, very flushed and warlike, continued his observations. Now and then, as he made an assertion, he shot a venomous glance at his opponent, who seemed to be slumbering deeply, with the same broad, happy smile upon his face. At last the lecture came to an end. I am inclined to think that it was a premature one, as the piroration was hurried and disconnected. The threat of the argument had been rudely broken, and the audience was restless and expectant. Waldrum sat down, and after a chirrup from the chairman, Professor Challenger rose and advanced to the edge of the platform. In the interest of my paper I took down his speech verbatim. Ladies and gentlemen! he began, amid a sustained interruption from the back. I beg pardon! Ladies, gentlemen, and children! I must apologize. I had inadvertently omitted a considerable section of this audience. Tumult, during which the professor stood with one hand raised, and his enormous head nodding sympathetically, as if he were bestowing a pontifical blessing upon the crowd. I have been selected to move a vote of thanks to Mr. Waldrum for the very picturesque and imaginative address to which we have just listened. There are points in it with which I disagree, and it has been my duty to indicate them as they arose. But, nonetheless, Mr. Waldrum has accomplished his object well, that object being to give a simple and interesting account of what he conceives to have been the history of our planet. Popular lectures are the easiest to listen to, but Mr. Waldrum, here he beamed and blinked at the lecturer, will excuse me when I say that they are necessarily both superficial and misleading since they have to be graded to the comprehension of an ignorant audience. Ironic cheering. Popular lecturers are in their nature parasitic. Angry gesture of protest from Mr. Waldrum. The exploit for fame or cash, the work which has been done by their indigent and unknown brethren. One smallest new fact obtained in the laboratory, one brick built into the temple of science, far outweighs any secondhand exposition which passes an idle hour, but can leave no useful result behind it. I put forward this obvious reflection, not out of any desire to disparage Mr. Waldrum in particular, but that you may not lose your sense of proportion and mistake the acolyte for the high priest. At this point Mr. Waldrum whispered to the chairman, who half rose and said something severely to his water-craft. But enough of this. Loud and prolonged cheers. Let me pass to some subject of wider interest. What is the particular point upon which I, as an original investigator, have challenged our lecturer's accuracy? It is upon the permanence of certain types of animal life upon the earth. I do not speak upon the subject as an amateur, nor I may add as a popular lecturer, but I speak as one whose scientific conscience compels him to adhere closely to facts, when I say that Mr. Waldrum is very wrong in supposing that because he has never himself seen a so-called prehistoric animal, therefore these creatures no longer exist. They are indeed, as he has said, our ancestors, but they are, if I may use the expression, our contemporary ancestors, who can still be found with all their hideous and formidable characteristics if one has but the energy and hardy-hood to seek their haunts. Creatures which were supposed to be Jurassic, monsters who would hunt down and devour our largest and fiercest mammals still exist. Cries of Bosch! Prove it! How do you know? Question! How do I know you ask me? I know because I have visited their secret haunts. I know because I have seen some of them. Applause! Uproar! And a voice! Liar! Am I a liar? General Hardy and Noisy Ascent! Did I hear some one say that I was a liar? Will the person who called me a liar kindly stand up that I may know him? A voice! Here he is, sir! And an inoffensive little person in spectacles, struggling violently, was held up among a group of students. Did you venture to call me a liar? No, sir, no! shouted the accused, and disappeared like a jack in the box. If any person in this hall dares to doubt my veracity, I shall be glad to have a few words with him after the lecture. Liar! Who said that? Again the inoffensive one, plunging desperately, was elevated high into the air. If I come down among you, General Chorus of Come, Love, Come! Which interrupted the proceedings for some moments, while the Chairman standing up and waving both his arms seemed to be conducting the music. The Professor, with his face flushed, his nostrils dilated, and his beard bristling was now in a proper berserk mood. Every great discoverer has been met with the same incredulity, the sure brand of a generation of fools. When great facts are laid before you, you have not the intuition, the imagination which would help you to understand them. You can only throw mud at the men who have risked their lives to open new fields to science. You persecute the Prophets, Galileo, Darwin, and I prolong cheering and complete interruption. All this is from my hurried notes taken at the time which give little notion of the absolute chaos to which the assembly had by this time been reduced. So terrific was the uproar that several ladies had already beaten a hurried retreat. Grave and reverend seniors seemed to have caught the prevailing spirit as badly as the students, and I saw white-bearded men rising and shaking their fists at the obdurate Professor. The whole great audience seathed and simmered like a boiling pot. The Professor took a step forward and raised both his hands. There was something so big and arresting and virile in the man that the clatter and shouting died gradually away before his commanding gesture and his masterful eyes. He seemed to have a definite message. They hushed to hear it. I will not detain you, he said. It is not worth it. Truth is truth, and the noise of a number of foolish young men—and I fear, I must add, of their equally foolish seniors—cannot affect the matter. I claim that I have opened a new field of science. You dispute it. Cheers. Then I put you to the test. Will you accredit one or more of your own number to go out as your representatives and test my statement in your name? Mr. Summerly, the veteran Professor of Comparative Anatomy, rose among the audience a tall, thin, bitter man with a withered aspect of a theologian. He wished, he said, to ask Professor Challenger whether the results to which he had alluded in his remarks had been obtained during a journey to the headwaters of the Amazon made by him two years before. Professor Challenger answered that they had. Mr. Summerly desired to know how it was that Professor Challenger claimed to have made discoveries in those regions which had been overlooked by Wallace, Bates, and other previous explorers of established scientific repute. Professor Challenger answered that Mr. Summerly appeared to be confusing the Amazon with the Thames, that it was in reality a somewhat larger river, that Mr. Summerly might be interested to know that with the Orinoco, which communicated with it, some fifty thousand miles of country were opened up, and that in so vast a space it was not impossible for one person to find what another had missed. Mr. Summerly declared with an acid smile that he fully appreciated the difference between the Thames and the Amazon, which lay in the fact that any assertion about the former could be tested, while about the latter it could not. He would be obliged if Professor Challenger would give the latitude and the longitude of the country in which prehistoric animals were to be found. Professor Challenger replied that he reserved such information for good reasons of his own, but would be prepared to give it with proper precautions to a committee chosen from the audience. Would Mr. Summerly serve on such a committee and test his story in person? Mr. Summerly. Yes, I will. Great cheering. Professor Challenger. Then I guarantee that I will place in your hands such material as will enable you to find your way. It is only right, however, since Mr. Summerly goes to check my statement that I should have one or more with him who may check his. I will not disguise from you that there are difficulties and dangers. Mr. Summerly will need a younger colleague. May I ask for volunteers? It is thus that the great crisis of a man's life springs out at him. Could I have imagined when I entered that hall that I was about to pledge myself to a wilder adventure than had ever come to me in my dreams? But Gladys. Was it not the very opportunity of which she spoke? Gladys would have told me to go. I had sprung to my feet, I was speaking, and yet I had prepared no words. Tarp Henry, my companion, was plucking at my skirts and I heard him whispering, Sit down, Malone, don't make a public ass of yourself. At the same time I was aware that a tall, thin man, with dark, gingerly hair, a few seats in front of me, was also upon his feet. He glared back at me with hard, angry eyes, but I refused to give way. I will go, Mr. Chairman. I kept repeating over and over again. Name, name, cried the audience. My name is Edward Dunn Malone. I am the reporter of the Daily Gazette. I claim to be an absolutely unprejudiced witness. What is your name, sir? The Chairman asked of my tall rival. I am Lord John Roxton. I have already been up the Amazon. I know all the ground, and have special qualifications for this investigation. Lord John Roxton's reputation as a sportsman and a traveller is, of course, world famous, said the Chairman. At the same time it would certainly be as well to have a member of the press upon such an expedition. Then I move, said Professor Challenger, that both these gentlemen be elected, as representatives of this meeting, to accompany Professor Somerly upon his journey to investigate and report upon the truth of my statements. And so, amid shouting and cheering, our fate was decided, and I found myself born away in the human current which swirled towards the door, with my mind half stunned by the vast new project which had risen so suddenly before it. As I emerged from the hall I was conscious for a moment of a rush of laughing students down the pavement and of an arm wielding a heavy umbrella which rose and fell in the midst of them. Then amid a mixture of groans and cheers, Professor Challenger's electric brome slid from the curb, and I found myself walking under the silvery lights of Regent Street, full of thoughts of gladness and of wonder as to my future. Suddenly there was a touch at my elbow. I turned and found myself looking into the humorous, masterful eyes of the tall, thin man who had volunteered to be my companion on this strange quest. Mr. Malone, I understand, said he. We are to be companions, what? My rooms are just over the road in the Albany. Perhaps you will have the kindness to spare me half an hour, for there are one or two things that I badly want to say to you.