, I admit, but this new
prodigy completely upsets your case."

"Eh! What is that? What new prodigy?" sneered Grossmann; and two or
three savants among the little ring of listeners, although they had not
that perfect confidence in Elmer which would have put them at ease,
nodded gravely as if they were aware of the validity of his instance.

Elmer blew out his cheeks and raised his eyebrows. "Ah! you haven't
heard of him!" he remarked with a rather fleshy surprise. "Victor Stott,
you know, son of a professional cricketer, protege of Henry Challis, the
anthropologist. Oh! you ought to investigate that case, Herr Professor.
It is most remarkable, most remarkable."

"Ach! What form does the abnormality take?" asked Grossmann
suspiciously, and his tone made it clear that he had little confidence
in the value of any report made to him by such an observer as Sir Deane
Elmer.

"I can't pretend to give you anything like a full account of it," Elmer
returned. "I have only seen the child once. But, honestly, Herr
Professor, you cannot use that brochure of yours in any future argument
until you have investigated this case of young Stott. It confutes you."

"I can see him, then?" Grossmann asked, frowning. In that company he
could not afford to decline the challenge that had been thrown down.
There were, at least, five men present who would, he believed,
immediately conduct the examination on their own account, should he
refuse the opportunity; men who would not fail to use their material for
the demolition of that pamphlet on the type of abnormality, more
particularly represented by the amazing precocity of Christian
Heinecken.

To the layman such an attack may seem a small matter, and likely to have
little effect on such a reputation as that already won by Hugo
Grossmann; and it should be explained that in the Professor's great work
on "Heredity and Human Development," an essential argument was based on
the absence of any considerable _progressive_ variation from the normal.
Indeed it was from this premise that he developed the celebrated
"variation" theory which is, now, generally admitted to have compromised
the whole principle of "Natural Selection" while it has given a
wonderful impetus to all recent investigations and experiments on the
lines first indicated by Mendel.

"I can see him, then?" asked Grossmann, with the faintly annoyed air of
one who is compelled by circumstances to undertake a futile task.

"Certainly