about his methods which made evasion
difficult. I must still make play and wait for a better opening. It
had seemed simple enough at a distance. Oh, my Irish wits, could they
not help me now, when I needed help so sorely? He transfixed me with
two sharp, steely eyes. "Come, come!" he rumbled.

"I am, of course, a mere student," said I, with a fatuous smile,
"hardly more, I might say, than an earnest inquirer. At the same time,
it seemed to me that you were a little severe upon Weissmann in this
matter. Has not the general evidence since that date tended to--well,
to strengthen his position?"

"What evidence?" He spoke with a menacing calm.

"Well, of course, I am aware that there is not any what you might call
DEFINITE evidence. I alluded merely to the trend of modern thought and
the general scientific point of view, if I might so express it."

He leaned forward with great earnestness.

"I suppose you are aware," said he, checking off points upon his
fingers, "that the cranial index is a constant factor?"

"Naturally," said I.

"And that telegony is still sub judice?"

"Undoubtedly."

"And that the germ plasm is different from the parthenogenetic egg?"

"Why, surely!" I cried, and gloried in my own audacity.

"But what does that prove?" he asked, in a gentle, persuasive voice.

"Ah, what indeed?" I murmured. "What does it prove?"

"Shall I tell you?" he cooed.

"Pray do."

"It proves," he roared, with a sudden blast of fury, "that you are the
damnedest imposter in London--a vile, crawling journalist, who has no
more science than he has decency in his composition!"

He had sprung to his feet with a mad rage in his eyes. Even at that
moment of tension I found time for amazement at the discovery that he
was quite a short man, his head not higher than my shoulder--a stunted
Hercules whose tremendous vitality had all run to depth, breadth, and
brain.

"Gibberish!" he cried, leaning forward, with his fingers on the table
and his face projecting. "That's what I have been talking to you,
sir--scientific gibberish! Did you think you could match cunning with
me--you with your walnut of a brain? You think you are omnipotent, you
infernal scribblers, don't you? That your praise can make a man and
your blame can break him? We must all bow to you, and try to get a
favorable word, must we? This man shall have a leg up, and this man
shall have a dressing down! Creeping vermin, I know you! You've