MERY interrupted my tangle of mystification and suspicion
about one o'clock, and his grotesque attendant followed him
with a tray bearing bread, some herbs and other eatables,
a flask of whiskey, a jug of water, and three glasses and knives.
I glanced askance at this strange creature, and found him watching
me with his queer, restless eyes. Montgomery said he would lunch
with me, but that Moreau was too preoccupied with some work
to come.

"Moreau!" said I. "I know that name."

"The devil you do!" said he. "What an ass I was to mention it to you!
I might have thought. Anyhow, it will give you an inkling
of our--mysteries. Whiskey?"

"No, thanks; I'm an abstainer."

"I wish I'd been. But it's no use locking the door
after the steed is stolen. It was that infernal
stuff which led to my coming here,--that, and a foggy night.
I thought myself in luck at the time, when Moreau offered to get me off.
It's queer--"

"Montgomery," said I, suddenly, as the outer door closed, "why has
your man pointed ears?"

"Damn!" he said, over his first mouthful of food. He stared at me
for a moment, and then repeated, "Pointed ears?"

"Little points to them," said I, as calmly as possible, with a catch
in my breath; "and a fine black fur at the edges?"

He helped himself to whiskey and water with great deliberation.
"I was under the impression--that his hair covered his ears."

"I saw them as he stooped by me to put that coffee you sent to me
on the table. And his eyes shine in the dark."

By this time Montgomery had recovered from the surprise of my question.
"I always thought," he said deliberately, with a certain
accentuation of his flavouring of lisp, "that there _was_ something
the matter with his ears, from the way he covered them.
What were they like?"

I was persuaded from his manner that this ignorance was a pretence.
Still, I could hardly tell the man that I thought him a liar.
"Pointed," I said; "rather small and furry,--distinctly furry.
But the whole man is one of the strangest beings I ever set
eyes on."

A sharp, hoarse cry of animal pain came from the enclosure behind us.
Its depth and volume testified to the puma. I saw Montgomery wince.

"Yes?" he said.

"Where did you pick up the creature?"

"San Francisco. He's an ugly brute, I admit. Half-witted, you know.
Can't remember where he came from. But I'm used to him, you know.
We both are. How does he strike you?"

"He's unnatural," I said.