Hardly was it shut when Mrs. Challenger darted out fromthe dining-room. The small woman was in a furious temper. She barred her husband's way like an enraged chicken in front ofa bulldog. It was evident that she had seen my exit, but had notobserved 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 wholestreet--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 RegiusProfessor at a great University with a thousand students allrevering 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, Jessie."

"A roaring, raging bully!"

"That's done it! Stool of penance!" said he.

To my amazement he stooped, picked her up, and placed her sittingupon 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 hardlybalance upon it. A more absurd object than she presented cockedup 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, Jessie.

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 to-morrow, and sell an extradozen among our neighbors. `Strange story of high life'--youfelt fairly high on that pedestal, did you not? Then a sub-title,`Glimpse of a singular menage.' He's a foul feeder, is Mr. Malone,a carrion eater, like all of his kind--porcus ex grege diaboli--a swine from the devil's herd. That's it, Malone--what?"

"You are really intolerable!" said I, hotly.

He bellowed with laughter.

"We shall have a coalition presently," he boomed, looking fromhis wife to me and puffing out his enormous chest. Then, suddenlyaltering his tone, "Excuse this frivolous family badinage, Mr. Malone. I called you back for some more serious purpose than to mix youup 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 ifI did what you advise, but I shouldn't be quite GeorgeEdward Challenger. There are plenty of better men, my dear, butonly one G. E. C. So make the best of him." He suddenly gave hera resounding kiss, which embarrassed me even more than his violencehad done. "Now, Mr. Malone," he continued, with a great accessionof dignity, "this way, if YOU please."

We re-entered the room which we had left so tumultuously tenminutes before. The Professor closed the door carefully behindus, motioned me into an arm-chair, and pushed a cigar-box undermy nose.

"Real San Juan Colorado," he said. "Excitable people like youare the better for narcotics. Heavens! don't bite it! Cut--andcut with reverence! Now lean back, and listen attentively towhatever I may care to say to you. If any remark should occur toyou, you can reserve it for some more opportune time.

"First of all, as to your return to my house after your mostjustifiable expulsion"--he protruded his beard, and stared at meas one who challenges and invites contradiction--"after, as Isay, your well-merited expulsion. The reason lay in your answerto that most officious policeman, in which I seemed to discernsome glimmering of good feeling upon your part--more, at anyrate, than I am accustomed to associate with your profession. In admitting that the fault of the incident lay with you, you gavesome evidence of a certain mental detachment and breadth of viewwhich attracted my favorable notice. The sub-species of thehuman race to which you unfortunately belong has always beenbelow my mental horizon. Your words brought you suddenly above it. You swam up into my serious notice. For this reason I asked youto return with me, as I was minded to make your further acquaintance. You will kindly deposit your ash in the small Japanese tray on thebamboo 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 hesat all puffed out like an enormous bull-frog, his head laid backand his eyes half-covered by supercilious lids. Now he suddenlyturned himself sideways, and all I could see of him was tangledhair with a red, protruding ear. He was scratching about amongthe litter of papers upon his desk. He faced me presently withwhat looked like a very tattered sketch-book 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 understandthat nothing I tell you now is to be repeated in any public wayunless you have my express permission. That permission will, inall 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 cansee, 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 word, 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. "Brachycephalic, gray-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 meyour promise that my confidence will be respected? That confidence,I may say, will be far from complete. But I am prepared to giveyou a few indications which will be of interest. In the firstplace, you are probably aware that two years ago I made a journeyto South America--one which will be classical in the scientifichistory of the world? The object of my journey was to verify someconclusions of Wallace and of Bates, which could only be done byobserving their reported facts under the same conditions in whichthey had themselves noted them. If my expedition had no otherresults it would still have been noteworthy, but a curious incidentoccurred to me while there which opened up an entirely fresh lineof inquiry.

"You are aware--or probably, in this half-educated age, you arenot aware--that the country round some parts of the Amazon isstill only partially explored, and that a great number oftributaries, some of them entirely uncharted, run into themain river. It was my business to visit this little-knownback-country and to examine its fauna, which furnished me withthe materials for several chapters for that great and monumentalwork upon zoology which will be my life's justification. I wasreturning, my work accomplished, when I had occasion to spend anight at a small Indian village at a point where a certaintributary--the name and position of which I withhold--opensinto the main river. The natives were Cucama Indians, an amiablebut degraded race, with mental powers hardly superior to theaverage Londoner. I had effected some cures among them upon myway up the river, and had impressed them considerably with mypersonality, so that I was not surprised to find myself eagerlyawaited upon my return. I gathered from their signs that someonehad urgent need of my medical services, and I followed the chiefto one of his huts. When I entered I found that the sufferer towhose aid I had been summoned had that instant expired. He was,to my surprise, no Indian, but a white man; indeed, I may say avery white man, for he was flaxen-haired and had somecharacteristics of an albino. He was clad in rags, was veryemaciated, and bore every trace of prolonged hardship. So far asI could understand the account of the natives, he was a completestranger to them, and had come upon their village through thewoods alone and in the last stage of exhaustion.

"The man's knapsack lay beside the couch, and I examined the contents. His name was written upon a tab within it--Maple White, LakeAvenue, Detroit, Michigan. It is a name to which I am preparedalways to lift my hat. It is not too much to say that it willrank level with my own when the final credit of this businesscomes to be apportioned.

"From the contents of the knapsack it was evident that this manhad been an artist and poet in search of effects. There werescraps 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 were also some rather commonplace pictures of river scenery,a paint-box, a box of colored chalks, some brushes, that curvedbone which lies upon my inkstand, a volume of Baxter's `Moths andButterflies,' a cheap revolver, and a few cartridges. Of personalequipment 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 somethingprojected from the front of his ragged jacket. It was thissketch-book, which was as dilapidated then as you see it now. Indeed, I can assure you that a first folio of Shakespeare couldnot be treated with greater reverence than this relic has beensince it came into my possession. I hand it to you now, and Iask you to take it page by page and to examine the contents."

He helped himself to a cigar and leaned back with a fiercelycritical pair of eyes, taking note of the effect which thisdocument would produce.

I had opened the volume with some expectation of a revelation,though of what nature I could not imagine. The first page wasdisappointing, however, as it contained nothing but the pictureof a very fat man in a pea-jacket, with the legend, "Jimmy Colveron the Mail-boat," written beneath it. There followed several pageswhich were filled with small sketches of Indians and their ways. Then came a picture of a cheerful and corpulent ecclesiastic ina shovel hat, sitting opposite a very thin European, and theinscription: "Lunch with Fra Cristofero at Rosario." Studies ofwomen and babies accounted for several more pages, and then therewas an unbroken series of animal drawings with such explanationsas "Manatee upon Sandbank," "Turtles and Their Eggs," "Black Ajoutiunder a Miriti Palm"--the matter disclosing some sort of pig-likeanimal; and finally came a double page of studies of long-snoutedand very unpleasant saurians. I could make nothing of it, and saidso to the Professor.

"Surely these are only crocodiles?"

"Alligators! Alligators! There is hardly such a thing as a truecrocodile in South America. The distinction between them----"

"I meant that I could see nothing unusual--nothing to justifywhat 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 alandscape roughly tinted in color--the kind of painting which anopen-air artist takes as a guide to a future more elaborate effort. There was a pale-green foreground of feathery vegetation, whichsloped upwards and ended in a line of cliffs dark red in color, andcuriously 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 greattree, which appeared to be separated by a cleft from the main crag. Behind it all, a blue tropical sky. A thin green line of vegetationfringed the summit of the ruddy cliff.

"Well?" he asked.

"It is no doubt a curious formation," said I "but I am notgeologist enough to say that it is wonderful."

"Wonderful!" he repeated. "It is unique. It is incredible. No oneon earth has ever dreamed of such a possibility. Now the next."

I turned it over, and gave an exclamation of surprise. There wasa full-page picture of the most extraordinary creature that I hadever seen. It was the wild dream of an opium smoker, a visionof delirium. The head was like that of a fowl, the body that ofa bloated lizard, the trailing tail was furnished with upward-turned spikes, and the curved back was edged with a high serratedfringe, which looked like a dozen cocks' wattles placed behindeach other. In front of this creature was an absurd mannikin,or dwarf, in human form, who stood staring at it.

"Well, what do you think of that?" cried the Professor, rubbinghis 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 actuallysketched from the life."

I should have laughed only that I had a vision of our doinganother Catharine-wheel down the passage.

"No doubt," said I, "no doubt," as one humors an imbecile. "I confess, however," I added, "that this tiny human figurepuzzles me. If it were an Indian we could set it down asevidence of some pigmy race in America, but it appears to bea European in a sun-hat."

The Professor snorted like an angry buffalo. "You really touchthe limit," said he. "You enlarge my view of the possible. Cerebral paresis! Mental inertia! Wonderful!"

He was too absurd to make me angry. Indeed, it was a waste ofenergy, for if you were going to be angry with this man you wouldbe 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 hairysausage of a finger on to the picture. "You see that plantbehind the animal; I suppose you thought it was a dandelion or aBrussels sprout--what? Well, it is a vegetable ivory palm, andthey run to about fifty or sixty feet. Don't you see that the manis put in for a purpose? He couldn't really have stood in front ofthat brute and lived to draw it. He sketched himself in to give ascale 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,Charing 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 isnot to be set aside on account of a single sketch"--I had turnedover the leaves and ascertained that there was nothing more inthe book--"a single sketch by a wandering American artist who mayhave done it under hashish, or in the delirium of fever, orsimply in order to gratify a freakish imagination. You can't, asa 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 Lankester!"said he. "There is an illustration here which would interest you. Ah, yes, here it is! The inscription beneath it runs: `Probableappearance in life of the Jurassic Dinosaur Stegosaurus. The hindleg alone is twice as tall as a full-grown man.' Well, what do youmake 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 certainlya 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 seena picture of the kind and carried it in his memory. It would belikely 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 onewhich he had already described as part of the dead man's possessions. It was about six inches long, and thicker than my thumb, with someindications of dried cartilage at one end of it.

"To 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 agroove upon its surface showing that a great tendon played acrossit, 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'tsuppose the whole South Kensington staff could give a name to it." He took a little bone the size of a bean out of a pill-box. "So far as I am a judge this human bone is the analogue of theone which you hold in your hand. That will give you some idea ofthe size of the creature. You will observe from the cartilage thatthis 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 thesedays of Board 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 ofmy business. This is not a conceivable bone either of a tapir orof any other creature known to zoology. It belongs to a verylarge, a very strong, and, by all analogy, a very fierce animalwhich exists upon the face of the earth, but has not yet comeunder 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 reasonlurking in you somewhere, so we will patiently grope round for it.We will now leave the dead American and proceed with my narrative. You can imagine that I could hardly come away from the Amazonwithout probing deeper into the matter. There were indicationsas to the direction from which the dead traveler had come. Indian legends would alone have been my guide, for I found thatrumors of a strange land were common among all the riverine tribes. You have heard, no doubt, of Curupuri?"

"Never."

"Curupuri is the spirit of the woods, something terrible,something malevolent, something to be avoided. None can describeits shape or nature, but it is a word of terror along the Amazon. Now all tribes agree as to the direction in which Curupuri lives. It was the same direction from which the American had come. Something terrible lay that way. It was my business to find outwhat it was."

"What did you do?" My flippancy was all gone. This massive mancompelled one's attention and respect.

"I overcame the extreme reluctance of the natives--a reluctancewhich extends even to talk upon the subject--and by judiciouspersuasion and gifts, aided, I will admit, by some threats ofcoercion, I got two of them to act as guides. After manyadventures which I need not describe, and after traveling adistance which I will not mention, in a direction which Iwithhold, we came at last to a tract of country which hasnever been described, nor, indeed, visited save by myunfortunate predecessor. Would you kindly look at this?"

He handed 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 whichcontained 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 explanationof deficiencies or abnormalities you will kindly accept. There wastalk of faking. I am not in a mood to argue such a point."

The photograph was certainly very off-colored. An unkind criticmight easily have misinterpreted that dim surface. It was a dullgray landscape, and as I gradually deciphered the details of it Irealized that it represented a long and enormously high line ofcliffs exactly like an immense cataract seen in the distance,with a sloping, tree-clad plain 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 tracesof the fellow's camp. Now look at this."

It was a nearer view of the same scene, though the photograph wasextremely 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 interestyou to know that I succeeded in shooting that particular specimen. It was the only absolute proof of my experiences which I was ableto 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 thesame boat accident which ruined my photographs. I clutched at itas it disappeared in the swirl of the rapids, and part of itswing 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 upperportion of the wing of a large bat. It was at least two feet inlength, a curved bone, with a membranous veil beneath it.

"A monstrous bat!" I suggested.

"Nothing of the sort," said the Professor, severely. "Living, asI do, in an educated and scientific atmosphere, I could not haveconceived that the first principles of zoology were so little known. Is it possible that you do not know the elementary fact incomparative anatomy, that the wing of a bird is really theforearm, while the wing of a bat consists of three elongatedfingers with membranes between? Now, in this case, the bone iscertainly not the forearm, and you can see for yourself that thisis a single membrane hanging upon a single bone, and thereforethat it cannot belong to a bat. But if it is neither bird norbat, 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 extraordinaryflying monster, "is an excellent reproduction of the dimorphodon,or pterodactyl, a flying reptile of the Jurassic period. On thenext page is a diagram of the mechanism of its wing. Kindly compareit 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 proofwas overwhelming. The sketch, the photographs, the narrative, andnow the actual specimen--the evidence was complete. I said so--Isaid so warmly, for I felt that the Professor was an ill-used man. He leaned back in his chair with drooping eyelids and a tolerantsmile, basking in this 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 scientificenthusiasm that was roused. "It is colossal. You are a Columbusof science who has discovered a lost world. I'm awfully sorry ifI seemed to doubt you. It was all so unthinkable. But Iunderstand evidence when I see it, and this should be good enoughfor anyone."

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 tofind any way to scale it. The pyramidal rock upon which I sawand shot the pterodactyl was more accessible. Being something ofa cragsman, I did manage to get half way to the top of that. From that height I had a better idea of the plateau upon the topof the crags. It appeared to be very large; neither to east norto 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 atthe base of the cliff we heard some very strange noises from above."

"But the creature that the American drew? How do you accountfor that?"

"We can only suppose that he must have made his way to the summitand seen it there. We know, therefore, that there is a way up. We know equally that it must be a very difficult one, otherwise thecreatures 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 theProfessor; "there can only be one explanation. South America is,as you may have heard, a granite continent. At this single pointin the interior there has been, in some far distant age, a great,sudden volcanic upheaval. These cliffs, I may remark, arebasaltic, and therefore plutonic. An area, as large perhaps asSussex, has been lifted up en bloc with all its living contents,and cut off by perpendicular precipices of a hardness whichdefies erosion from all the rest of the continent. What isthe result? Why, the ordinary laws of Nature are suspended. The various checks which influence the struggle for existence inthe world at large are all neutralized or altered. Creatures survivewhich would otherwise disappear. You will observe that both thepterodactyl and the stegosaurus are Jurassic, and therefore of agreat age in the order of life. They have been artificiallyconserved by those strange accidental conditions."

"But surely your evidence is conclusive. You have only to lay itbefore 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 everyturn 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 provea fact if my word has been doubted. After the first I have notcondescended to show such corroborative proofs as I possess. The subject became hateful to me--I would not speak of it. When men like yourself, who represent the foolish curiosityof the public, came to disturb my privacy I was unable to meetthem with dignified reserve. By nature I am, I admit, somewhatfiery, and under provocation I am inclined to be violent. I fearyou may have remarked it."

I nursed my eye and was silent.

"My wife has frequently remonstrated with me upon the subject,and yet I fancy that any man of honor would feel the same. To-night, however, I propose to give an extreme example of thecontrol of the will over the emotions. I invite you to bepresent at the exhibition." He handed me a card from his desk. "You will perceive that Mr. Percival Waldron, a naturalist ofsome popular repute, is announced to lecture at eight-thirty atthe Zoological Institute's Hall upon `The Record of the Ages.' I have been specially invited to be present upon the platform, andto move a vote of thanks to the lecturer. While doing so, Ishall make it my business, with infinite tact and delicacy, tothrow out a few remarks which may arouse the interest of theaudience and cause some of them to desire to go more deeply intothe matter. Nothing contentious, you understand, but only anindication that there are greater deeps beyond. I shall holdmyself strongly in leash, and see whether by this self-restraintI attain a more favorable result."

"And I may come?" I asked eagerly.

"Why, surely," he answered, cordially. He had an enormouslymassive genial manner, which was almost as overpowering ashis violence. His smile of benevolence was a wonderful thing,when his cheeks would suddenly bunch into two red apples, betweenhis 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 thehall, however inefficient and ignorant of the subject he may be. I fancy there will be a large audience, for Waldron, though anabsolute 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 to-night. In themeantime, you will understand that no public use is to be madeof any of the material that I have given you."

"But Mr. McArdle--my news editor, you know--will want to knowwhat I have done."

"Tell him what you like. You can say, among other things, thatif he sends anyone else to intrude upon me I shall call upon himwith a riding-whip. But I leave it to you that nothing of allthis appears in print. Very good. Then the ZoologicalInstitute's Hall at eight-thirty to-night." I had a lastimpression of red cheeks, blue rippling beard, and intoleranteyes, as he waved me out of the room.