บทที่ บทที่ 1 · THE BLURRING OF LINES

. THE BLURRING OF LINES

THE BLURRING OF LINES

It is imperative that now at once, while these stupendous events are

still clear in my mind, I should set them down with that exactness of

detail which time may blur. But even as I do so, I am overwhelmed by the

wonder of the fact that it should be our little group of the "Lost

World"--Professor Challenger, Professor Summerlee, Lord John Roxton, and

myself--who have passed through this amazing experience.

When, some years ago, I chronicled in the Daily Gazette our epoch-making

journey in South America, I little thought that it should ever fall to my

lot to tell an even stranger personal experience, one which is unique in

all human annals and must stand out in the records of history as a great

peak among the humble foothills which surround it. The event itself will

always be marvellous, but the circumstances that we four were together at

the time of this extraordinary episode came about in a most natural and,

indeed, inevitable fashion. I will explain the events which led up to it

as shortly and as clearly as I can, though I am well aware that the

fuller the detail upon such a subject the more welcome it will be to the

reader, for the public curiosity has been and still is insatiable.

It was upon Friday, the twenty-seventh of August--a date forever

memorable in the history of the world--that I went down to the office of

my paper and asked for three days' leave of absence from Mr. McArdle, who

still presided over our news department. The good old Scotchman shook

his head, scratched his dwindling fringe of ruddy fluff, and finally put

his reluctance into words.

"I was thinking, Mr. Malone, that we could employ you to advantage these

days. I was thinking there was a story that you are the only man that

could handle as it should be handled."

"I am sorry for that," said I, trying to hide my disappointment. "Of

course if I am needed, there is an end of the matter. But the engagement

was important and intimate. If I could be spared----"

"Well, I don't see that you can."

It was bitter, but I had to put the best face I could upon it. After

all, it was my own fault, for I should have known by this time that a

journalist has no right to make plans of his own.

"Then I'll think no more of it," said I with as much cheerfulness as I

could assume at so short a notice. "What was it that you wanted me to

do?"

"Well, it was just to interview that deevil of a man down at Rotherfield."

"You don't mean Professor Challenger?" I cried.

"Aye, it's just him that I do mean. He ran young Alec Simpson of the

Courier a mile down the high road last week by the collar of his coat and

the slack of his breeches. You'll have read of it, likely, in the police

report. Our boys would as soon interview a loose alligator in the zoo.

But you could do it, I'm thinking--an old friend like you."

"Why," said I, greatly relieved, "this makes it all easy. It so happens

that it was to visit Professor Challenger at Rotherfield that I was

asking for leave of absence. The fact is, that it is the anniversary of

our main adventure on the plateau three years ago, and he has asked our

whole party down to his house to see him and celebrate the occasion."

"Capital!" cried McArdle, rubbing his hands and beaming through his

glasses. "Then you will be able to get his opeenions out of him. In any

other man I would say it was all moonshine, but the fellow has made good

once, and who knows but he may again!"

"Get what out of him?" I asked. "What has he been doing?"

"Haven't you seen his letter on 'Scientific Possibeelities' in to-day's

Times?"

"No."

McArdle dived down and picked a copy from the floor.

"Read it aloud," said he, indicating a column with his finger. "I'd be

glad to hear it again, for I am not sure now that I have the man's

meaning clear in my head."

This was the letter which I read to the news editor of the Gazette:--

"SCIENTIFIC POSSIBILITIES"

"Sir,--I have read with amusement, not wholly unmixed with some less

complimentary emotion, the complacent and wholly fatuous letter of James

Wilson MacPhail which has lately appeared in your columns upon the

subject of the blurring of Fraunhofer's lines in the spectra both of the

planets and of the fixed stars. He dismisses the matter as of no

significance. To a wider intelligence it may well seem of very great

possible importance--so great as to involve the ultimate welfare of every

man, woman, and child upon this planet. I can hardly hope, by the use of

scientific language, to convey any sense of my meaning to those

ineffectual people who gather their ideas from the columns of a daily

newspaper. I will endeavour, therefore, to condescend to their

limitation and to indicate the situation by the use of a homely analogy

which will be within the limits of the intelligence of your readers."

"Man, he's a wonder--a living wonder!" said McArdle, shaking his head

reflectively. "He'd put up the feathers of a sucking-dove and set up a

riot in a Quakers' meeting. No wonder he has made London too hot for

him. It's a peety, Mr. Malone, for it's a grand brain! We'll let's have

the analogy."

"We will suppose," I read, "that a small bundle of connected corks was

launched in a sluggish current upon a voyage across the Atlantic. The

corks drift slowly on from day to day with the same conditions all round

them. If the corks were sentient we could imagine that they would

consider these conditions to be permanent and assured. But we, with our

superior knowledge, know that many things might happen to surprise the

corks. They might possibly float up against a ship, or a sleeping whale,

or become entangled in seaweed. In any case, their voyage would probably

end by their being thrown up on the rocky coast of Labrador. But what

could they know of all this while they drifted so gently day by day in

what they thought was a limitless and homogeneous ocean?

"Your readers will possibly comprehend that the Atlantic, in this

parable, stands for the mighty ocean of ether through which we drift and

that the bunch of corks represents the little and obscure planetary

system to which we belong. A third-rate sun, with its rag tag and

bobtail of insignificant satellites, we float under the same daily

conditions towards some unknown end, some squalid catastrophe which will

overwhelm us at the ultimate confines of space, where we are swept over

an etheric Niagara or dashed upon some unthinkable Labrador. I see no

room here for the shallow and ignorant optimism of your correspondent,

Mr. James Wilson MacPhail, but many reasons why we should watch with a

very close and interested attention every indication of change in those

cosmic surroundings upon which our own ultimate fate may depend."

"Man, he'd have made a grand meenister," said McArdle. "It just booms

like an organ. Let's get doun to what it is that's troubling him."

"The general blurring and shifting of Fraunhofer's lines of the spectrum

point, in my opinion, to a widespread cosmic change of a subtle and

singular character. Light from a planet is the reflected light of the

sun. Light from a star is a self-produced light. But the spectra both

from planets and stars have, in this instance, all undergone the same

change. Is it, then, a change in those planets and stars? To me such an

idea is inconceivable. What common change could simultaneously come upon

them all? Is it a change in our own atmosphere? It is possible, but in

the highest degree improbable, since we see no signs of it around us, and

chemical analysis has failed to reveal it. What, then, is the third

possibility? That it may be a change in the conducting medium, in that

infinitely fine ether which extends from star to star and pervades the

whole universe. Deep in that ocean we are floating upon a slow current.

Might that current not drift us into belts of ether which are novel and

have properties of which we have never conceived? There is a change

somewhere. This cosmic disturbance of the spectrum proves it. It may be

a good change. It may be an evil one. It may be a neutral one. We do

not know. Shallow observers may treat the matter as one which can be

disregarded, but one who like myself is possessed of the deeper

intelligence of the true philosopher will understand that the

possibilities of the universe are incalculable and that the wisest man is

he who holds himself ready for the unexpected. To take an obvious

example, who would undertake to say that the mysterious and universal

outbreak of illness, recorded in your columns this very morning as having

broken out among the indigenous races of Sumatra, has no connection with

some cosmic change to which they may respond more quickly than the more

complex peoples of Europe? I throw out the idea for what it is worth.

To assert it is, in the present stage, as unprofitable as to deny it, but

it is an unimaginative numskull who is too dense to perceive that it is

well within the bounds of scientific possibility.

"Yours faithfully,

"GEORGE EDWARD CHALLENGER.

"THE BRIARS, ROTHERFIELD."

"It's a fine, steemulating letter," said McArdle thoughtfully, fitting a

cigarette into the long glass tube which he used as a holder. "What's

your opeenion of it, Mr. Malone?"

I had to confess my total and humiliating ignorance of the subject at

issue. What, for example, were Fraunhofer's lines? McArdle had just

been studying the matter with the aid of our tame scientist at the

office, and he picked from his desk two of those many-coloured spectral

bands which bear a general resemblance to the hat-ribbons of some young

and ambitious cricket club. He pointed out to me that there were certain

black lines which formed crossbars upon the series of brilliant colours

extending from the red at one end through gradations of orange, yellow,

green, blue, and indigo to the violet at the other.

"Those dark bands are Fraunhofer's lines," said he. "The colours are

just light itself. Every light, if you can split it up with a prism,

gives the same colours. They tell us nothing. It is the lines that

count, because they vary according to what it may be that produces the

light. It is these lines that have been blurred instead of clear this

last week, and all the astronomers have been quarreling over the reason.

Here's a photograph of the blurred lines for our issue to-morrow. The

public have taken no interest in the matter up to now, but this letter of

Challenger's in the Times will make them wake up, I'm thinking."

"And this about Sumatra?"

"Well, it's a long cry from a blurred line in a spectrum to a sick nigger

in Sumatra. And yet the chiel has shown us once before that he knows

what he's talking about. There is some queer illness down yonder, that's

beyond all doubt, and to-day there's a cable just come in from Singapore

that the lighthouses are out of action in the Straits of Sundan, and two

ships on the beach in consequence. Anyhow, it's good enough for you to

interview Challenger upon. If you get anything definite, let us have a

column by Monday."

I was coming out from the news editor's room, turning over my new mission

in my mind, when I heard my name called from the waiting-room below. It

was a telegraph-boy with a wire which had been forwarded from my lodgings

at Streatham. The message was from the very man we had been discussing,

and ran thus:--

Malone, 17, Hill Street, Streatham.--Bring oxygen.--Challenger.

"Bring oxygen!" The Professor, as I remembered him, had an elephantine

sense of humour capable of the most clumsy and unwieldly gambollings.

Was this one of those jokes which used to reduce him to uproarious

laughter, when his eyes would disappear and he was all gaping mouth and

wagging beard, supremely indifferent to the gravity of all around him? I

turned the words over, but could make nothing even remotely jocose out of

them. Then surely it was a concise order--though a very strange one. He

was the last man in the world whose deliberate command I should care to

disobey. Possibly some chemical experiment was afoot; possibly----Well,

it was no business of mine to speculate upon why he wanted it. I must

get it. There was nearly an hour before I should catch the train at

Victoria. I took a taxi, and having ascertained the address from the

telephone book, I made for the Oxygen Tube Supply Company in Oxford

Street.

As I alighted on the pavement at my destination, two youths emerged from

the door of the establishment carrying an iron cylinder, which, with some

trouble, they hoisted into a waiting motor-car. An elderly man was at

their heels scolding and directing in a creaky, sardonic voice. He

turned towards me. There was no mistaking those austere features and

that goatee beard. It was my old cross-grained companion, Professor

Summerlee.

"What!" he cried. "Don't tell me that _you_ have had one of these

preposterous telegrams for oxygen?"

I exhibited it.

"Well, well! I have had one too, and, as you see, very much against the

grain, I have acted upon it. Our good friend is as impossible as ever.

The need for oxygen could not have been so urgent that he must desert the

usual means of supply and encroach upon the time of those who are really

busier than himself. Why could he not order it direct?"

I could only suggest that he probably wanted it at once.

"Or thought he did, which is quite another matter. But it is superfluous

now for you to purchase any, since I have this considerable supply."

"Still, for some reason he seems to wish that I should bring oxygen too.

It will be safer to do exactly what he tells me."

Accordingly, in spite of many grumbles and remonstrances from Summerlee,

I ordered an additional tube, which was placed with the other in his

motor-car, for he had offered me a lift to Victoria.

I turned away to pay off my taxi, the driver of which was very

cantankerous and abusive over his fare. As I came back to Professor

Summerlee, he was having a furious altercation with the men who had

carried down the oxygen, his little white goat's beard jerking with

indignation. One of the fellows called him, I remember, "a silly old

bleached cockatoo," which so enraged his chauffeur that he bounded out of

his seat to take the part of his insulted master, and it was all we could

do to prevent a riot in the street.

These little things may seem trivial to relate, and passed as mere

incidents at the time. It is only now, as I look back, that I see their

relation to the whole story which I have to unfold.

The chauffeur must, as it seemed to me, have been a novice or else have

lost his nerve in this disturbance, for he drove vilely on the way to the

station. Twice we nearly had collisions with other equally erratic

vehicles, and I remember remarking to Summerlee that the standard of

driving in London had very much declined. Once we brushed the very edge

of a great crowd which was watching a fight at the corner of the Mall.

The people, who were much excited, raised cries of anger at the clumsy

driving, and one fellow sprang upon the step and waved a stick above our

heads. I pushed him off, but we were glad when we had got clear of them

and safe out of the park. These little events, coming one after the

other, left me very jangled in my nerves, and I could see from my

companion's petulant manner that his own patience had got to a low ebb.

But our good humour was restored when we saw Lord John Roxton waiting for

us upon the platform, his tall, thin figure clad in a yellow tweed

shooting-suit. His keen face, with those unforgettable eyes, so fierce

and yet so humorous, flushed with pleasure at the sight of us. His ruddy

hair was shot with grey, and the furrows upon his brow had been cut a

little deeper by Time's chisel, but in all else he was the Lord John who

had been our good comrade in the past.

"Hullo, Herr Professor! Hullo, young fella!" he shouted as he came

toward us.

He roared with amusement when he saw the oxygen cylinders upon the

porter's trolly behind us. "So you've got them too!" he cried. "Mine is

in the van. Whatever can the old dear be after?"

"Have you seen his letter in the Times?" I asked.

"What was it?"

"Stuff and nonsense!" said Summerlee harshly.

"Well, it's at the bottom of this oxygen business, or I am mistaken,"

said I.

"Stuff and nonsense!" cried Summerlee again with quite unnecessary

violence. We had all got into a first-class smoker, and he had already

lit the short and charred old briar pipe which seemed to singe the end of

his long, aggressive nose.

"Friend Challenger is a clever man," said he with great vehemence. "No

one can deny it. It's a fool that denies it. Look at his hat. There's

a sixty-ounce brain inside it--a big engine, running smooth, and turning

out clean work. Show me the engine-house and I'll tell you the size of

the engine. But he is a born charlatan--you've heard me tell him so to

his face--a born charlatan, with a kind of dramatic trick of jumping into

the limelight. Things are quiet, so friend Challenger sees a chance to

set the public talking about him. You don't imagine that he seriously

believes all this nonsense about a change in the ether and a danger to

the human race? Was ever such a cock-and-bull story in this life?"

He sat like an old white raven, croaking and shaking with sardonic

laughter.

A wave of anger passed through me as I listened to Summerlee. It was

disgraceful that he should speak thus of the leader who had been the

source of all our fame and given us such an experience as no men have

ever enjoyed. I had opened my mouth to utter some hot retort, when Lord

John got before me.

"You had a scrap once before with old man Challenger," said he sternly,

"and you were down and out inside ten seconds. It seems to me, Professor

Summerlee, he's beyond your class, and the best you can do with him is to

walk wide and leave him alone."

"Besides," said I, "he has been a good friend to every one of us.

Whatever his faults may be, he is as straight as a line, and I don't

believe he ever speaks evil of his comrades behind their backs."

"Well said, young fellah-my-lad," said Lord John Roxton. Then, with a

kindly smile, he slapped Professor Summerlee upon his shoulder. "Come,

Herr Professor, we're not going to quarrel at this time of day. We've

seen too much together. But keep off the grass when you get near

Challenger, for this young fellah and I have a bit of a weakness for the

old dear."

But Summerlee was in no humour for compromise. His face was screwed up

in rigid disapproval, and thick curls of angry smoke rolled up from his

pipe.

"As to you, Lord John Roxton," he creaked, "your opinion upon a matter of

science is of as much value in my eyes as my views upon a new type of

shot-gun would be in yours. I have my own judgment, sir, and I use it in

my own way. Because it has misled me once, is that any reason why I

should accept without criticism anything, however far-fetched, which this

man may care to put forward? Are we to have a Pope of science, with

infallible decrees laid down _ex cathedra_, and accepted without question

by the poor humble public? I tell you, sir, that I have a brain of my

own and that I should feel myself to be a snob and a slave if I did not

use it. If it pleases you to believe this rigmarole about ether and

Fraunhofer's lines upon the spectrum, do so by all means, but do not ask

one who is older and wiser than yourself to share in your folly. Is it

not evident that if the ether were affected to the degree which he

maintains, and if it were obnoxious to human health, the result of it

would already be apparent upon ourselves?" Here he laughed with

uproarious triumph over his own argument. "Yes, sir, we should already

be very far from our normal selves, and instead of sitting quietly

discussing scientific problems in a railway train we should be showing

actual symptoms of the poison which was working within us. Where do we

see any signs of this poisonous cosmic disturbance? Answer me that, sir!

Answer me that! Come, come, no evasion! I pin you to an answer!"

I felt more and more angry. There was something very irritating and

aggressive in Summerlee's demeanour.

"I think that if you knew more about the facts you might be less positive

in your opinion," said I.

Summerlee took his pipe from his mouth and fixed me with a stony stare.

"Pray what do you mean, sir, by that somewhat impertinent observation?"

"I mean that when I was leaving the office the news editor told me that a

telegram had come in confirming the general illness of the Sumatra

natives, and adding that the lights had not been lit in the Straits of

Sunda."

"Really, there should be some limits to human folly!" cried Summerlee in

a positive fury. "Is it possible that you do not realize that ether, if

for a moment we adopt Challenger's preposterous supposition, is a

universal substance which is the same here as at the other side of the

world? Do you for an instant suppose that there is an English ether and

a Sumatran ether? Perhaps you imagine that the ether of Kent is in some

way superior to the ether of Surrey, through which this train is now

bearing us. There really are no bounds to the credulity and ignorance of

the average layman. Is it conceivable that the ether in Sumatra should

be so deadly as to cause total insensibility at the very time when the

ether here has had no appreciable effect upon us whatever? Personally, I

can truly say that I never felt stronger in body or better balanced in

mind in my life."

"That may be. I don't profess to be a scientific man," said I, "though I

have heard somewhere that the science of one generation is usually the

fallacy of the next. But it does not take much common sense to see that,

as we seem to know so little about ether, it might be affected by some

local conditions in various parts of the world and might show an effect

over there which would only develop later with us."

"With 'might' and 'may' you can prove anything," cried Summerlee

furiously. "Pigs may fly. Yes, sir, pigs _may_ fly--but they don't. It

is not worth arguing with you. Challenger has filled you with his

nonsense and you are both incapable of reason. I had as soon lay

arguments before those railway cushions."

"I must say, Professor Summerlee, that your manners do not seem to have

improved since I last had the pleasure of meeting you," said Lord John

severely.

"You lordlings are not accustomed to hear the truth," Summerlee answered

with a bitter smile. "It comes as a bit of a shock, does it not, when

someone makes you realize that your title leaves you none the less a very

ignorant man?"

"Upon my word, sir," said Lord John, very stern and rigid, "if you were a

younger man you would not dare to speak to me in so offensive a fashion."

Summerlee thrust out his chin, with its little wagging tuft of goatee

beard.

"I would have you know, sir, that, young or old, there has never been a

time in my life when I was afraid to speak my mind to an ignorant

coxcomb--yes, sir, an ignorant coxcomb, if you had as many titles as

slaves could invent and fools could adopt."

For a moment Lord John's eyes blazed, and then, with a tremendous effort,

he mastered his anger and leaned back in his seat with arms folded and a

bitter smile upon his face. To me all this was dreadful and deplorable.

Like a wave, the memory of the past swept over me, the good comradeship,

the happy, adventurous days--all that we had suffered and worked for and

won. That it should have come to this--to insults and abuse! Suddenly I

was sobbing--sobbing in loud, gulping, uncontrollable sobs which refused

to be concealed. My companions looked at me in surprise. I covered my

face with my hands.

"It's all right," said I. "Only--only it _is_ such a pity!"

"You're ill, young fellah, that's what's amiss with you," said Lord John.

"I thought you were queer from the first."

"Your habits, sir, have not mended in these three years," said Summerlee,

shaking his head. "I also did not fail to observe your strange manner

the moment we met. You need not waste your sympathy, Lord John. These

tears are purely alcoholic. The man has been drinking. By the way, Lord

John, I called you a coxcomb just now, which was perhaps unduly severe.

But the word reminds me of a small accomplishment, trivial but amusing,

which I used to possess. You know me as the austere man of science. Can

you believe that I once had a well-deserved reputation in several

nurseries as a farmyard imitator? Perhaps I can help you to pass the

time in a pleasant way. Would it amuse you to hear me crow like a cock?"

"No, sir," said Lord John, who was still greatly offended, "it would

_not_ amuse me."

"My imitation of the clucking hen who had just laid an egg was also

considered rather above the average. Might I venture?"

"No, sir, no--certainly not."

But in spite of this earnest prohibition, Professor Summerlee laid down

his pipe and for the rest of our journey he entertained--or failed to

entertain--us by a succession of bird and animal cries which seemed so

absurd that my tears were suddenly changed into boisterous laughter,

which must have become quite hysterical as I sat opposite this grave

Professor and saw him--or rather heard him--in the character of the

uproarious rooster or the puppy whose tail had been trodden upon. Once

Lord John passed across his newspaper, upon the margin of which he had

written in pencil, "Poor devil! Mad as a hatter." No doubt it was very

eccentric, and yet the performance struck me as extraordinarily clever

and amusing.

Whilst this was going on, Lord John leaned forward and told me some

interminable story about a buffalo and an Indian rajah which seemed to me

to have neither beginning nor end. Professor Summerlee had just begun to

chirrup like a canary, and Lord John to get to the climax of his story,

when the train drew up at Jarvis Brook, which had been given us as the

station for Rotherfield.

And there was Challenger to meet us. His appearance was glorious. Not

all the turkey-cocks in creation could match the slow, high-stepping

dignity with which he paraded his own railway station and the benignant

smile of condescending encouragement with which he regarded everybody

around him. If he had changed in anything since the days of old, it was

that his points had become accentuated. The huge head and broad sweep of

forehead, with its plastered lock of black hair, seemed even greater than

before. His black beard poured forward in a more impressive cascade, and

his clear grey eyes, with their insolent and sardonic eyelids, were even

more masterful than of yore.

He gave me the amused hand-shake and encouraging smile which the head

master bestows upon the small boy, and, having greeted the others and

helped to collect their bags and their cylinders of oxygen, he stowed us

and them away in a large motor-car which was driven by the same impassive

Austin, the man of few words, whom I had seen in the character of butler

upon the occasion of my first eventful visit to the Professor. Our

journey led us up a winding hill through beautiful country. I sat in

front with the chauffeur, but behind me my three comrades seemed to me to

be all talking together. Lord John was still struggling with his buffalo

story, so far as I could make out, while once again I heard, as of old,

the deep rumble of Challenger and the insistent accents of Summerlee as

their brains locked in high and fierce scientific debate. Suddenly

Austin slanted his mahogany face toward me without taking his eyes from

his steering-wheel.

"I'm under notice," said he.

"Dear me!" said I.

Everything seemed strange to-day. Everyone said queer, unexpected

things. It was like a dream.

"It's forty-seven times," said Austin reflectively.

"When do you go?" I asked, for want of some better observation.

"I don't go," said Austin.

The conversation seemed to have ended there, but presently he came back

to it.

"If I was to go, who would look after 'im?" He jerked his head toward

his master. "Who would 'e get to serve 'im?"

"Someone else," I suggested lamely.

"Not 'e. No one would stay a week. If I was to go, that 'ouse would run

down like a watch with the mainspring out. I'm telling you because

you're 'is friend, and you ought to know. If I was to take 'im at 'is

word--but there, I wouldn't have the 'eart. 'E and the missus would be

like two babes left out in a bundle. I'm just everything. And then 'e

goes and gives me notice."

"Why would no one stay?" I asked.

"Well, they wouldn't make allowances, same as I do. 'E's a very clever

man, the master--so clever that 'e's clean balmy sometimes. I've seen

'im right off 'is onion, and no error. Well, look what 'e did this

morning."

"What did he do?"

Austin bent over to me.

"'E bit the 'ousekeeper," said he in a hoarse whisper.

"Bit her?"

"Yes, sir. Bit 'er on the leg. I saw 'er with my own eyes startin' a

marathon from the 'all-door."

"Good gracious!"

"So you'd say, sir, if you could see some of the goings on. 'E don't

make friends with the neighbors. There's some of them thinks that when

'e was up among those monsters you wrote about, it was just ''Ome, Sweet

'Ome' for the master, and 'e was never in fitter company. That's what

_they_ say. But I've served 'im ten years, and I'm fond of 'im, and,

mind you, 'e's a great man, when all's said an' done, and it's an honor

to serve 'im. But 'e does try one cruel at times. Now look at that,

sir. That ain't what you might call old-fashioned 'ospitality, is it

now? Just you read it for yourself."

The car on its lowest speed had ground its way up a steep, curving

ascent. At the corner a notice-board peered over a well-clipped hedge.

As Austin said, it was not difficult to read, for the words were few and

arresting:--

+---------------------------------------+

| WARNING. |

| ---- |

| Visitors, Pressmen, and Mendicants |

| are not encouraged. |

| |

| G. E. CHALLENGER. |

+---------------------------------------+

"No, it's not what you might call 'earty," said Austin, shaking his head

and glancing up at the deplorable placard. "It wouldn't look well in a

Christmas card. I beg your pardon, sir, for I haven't spoke as much as

this for many a long year, but to-day my feelings seem to 'ave got the

better of me. 'E can sack me till 'e's blue in the face, but I ain't

going, and that's flat. I'm 'is man and 'e's my master, and so it will

be, I expect, to the end of the chapter."

We had passed between the white posts of a gate and up a curving drive,

lined with rhododendron bushes. Beyond stood a low brick house, picked

out with white woodwork, very comfortable and pretty. Mrs. Challenger, a

small, dainty, smiling figure, stood in the open doorway to welcome us.

"Well, my dear," said Challenger, bustling out of the car, "here are our

visitors. It is something new for us to have visitors, is it not? No

love lost between us and our neighbors, is there? If they could get rat

poison into our baker's cart, I expect it would be there."

"It's dreadful--dreadful!" cried the lady, between laughter and tears.

"George is always quarreling with everyone. We haven't a friend on the

countryside."

"It enables me to concentrate my attention upon my incomparable wife,"

said Challenger, passing his short, thick arm round her waist. Picture a

gorilla and a gazelle, and you have the pair of them. "Come, come, these

gentlemen are tired from the journey, and luncheon should be ready. Has

Sarah returned?"

The lady shook her head ruefully, and the Professor laughed loudly and

stroked his beard in his masterful fashion.

"Austin," he cried, "when you have put up the car you will kindly help

your mistress to lay the lunch. Now, gentlemen, will you please step

into my study, for there are one or two very urgent things which I am

anxious to say to you."