r the moment, Professor, I couldn't follow
you. You are talking about the skeleton of the ape which you brought home
from South America, and which you have presented to the museum here?"

"Naturally," the Professor assented, with mild surprise. "To what else? I
am stating my case, Mr. Quest, in the _North American Review_ next month.
I may tell you, however, as a fellow scientist, the great and absolute
truth. My claim is incontestable. My skeleton will prove to the world,
without a doubt, the absolute truth of Darwin's great theory."

"That so?"

"You must go and see it," the Professor insisted, keeping by Quest's side
as the latter moved towards the automobile. "You must go and see it, Mr.
Quest. It will be on view to the public next week, but in the meantime I
will telephone to the curator. You must mention my name. You shall be
permitted a special examination."

"Very kind of you," Quest murmured.

"We shall meet again soon, I hope," the Professor concluded cordially.
"Good morning, Mr. Quest!"

The two men shook hands, and Quest took his seat by Lenora's side in the
automobile. The Professor rejoined his brother.

"George," he exclaimed, as they walked off together, "I am disappointed in
Mr. Quest! I am very disappointed indeed. You will not believe what I am
going to tell you, but it is the truth. He could not conceal it from me.
He takes no interest whatever in my anthropoid ape."

"Neither do I," the other replied grimly.

The Professor sighed as he hailed a taxicab.

"You, my dear fellow," he said gravely, "are naturally not in the frame of
mind for the consideration of these great subjects. Besides, you have no
scientific tendencies. But in Sanford Quest I am disappointed. I expected
his enthusiasm--I may say that I counted upon it."

"I don't think that Quest has much of that quality to spare," his brother
remarked, "for anything outside his own criminal hunting."

They entered the taxicab and were driven almost in silence to the
Professor's home--a large, rambling old house, situated in somewhat
extensive but ill-kept grounds on the outskirts of New York. The
Englishman glanced around him, as they passed up the drive, with an
expression of disapproval.

"A more untidy-looking place than yours, Edgar, I never saw," he declared.
"Your grounds have become a jungle. Don't you keep any gardeners?"

The Professor smiled.

"I keep other things," he said serenely. "There is something in my garden
w