nces the
Professor's narrative. "That's how it stands."

McArdle looked deeply incredulous.

"Well, Mr. Malone," he said at last, "about this scientific meeting
to-night; there can be no privacy about that, anyhow. I don't suppose
any paper will want to report it, for Waldron has been reported already
a dozen times, and no one is aware that Challenger will speak. We may
get a scoop, if we are lucky. You'll be there in any case, so you'll
just give us a pretty full report. I'll keep space up to midnight."

My day was a busy one, and I had an early dinner at the Savage Club
with Tarp Henry, to whom I gave some account of my adventures. He
listened with a sceptical smile on his gaunt face, and roared with
laughter on hearing that the Professor had convinced me.

"My dear chap, things don't happen like that in real life. People
don't stumble upon enormous discoveries and then lose their evidence.
Leave that to the novelists. The fellow is as full of tricks as the
monkey-house at the Zoo. It's all bosh."

"But the American poet?"

"He never existed."

"I saw his sketch-book."

"Challenger's sketch-book."

"You think he drew that animal?"

"Of course he did. Who else?"

"Well, then, the photographs?"

"There was nothing in the photographs. By your own admission you only
saw a bird."

"A pterodactyl."

"That's what HE says. He put the pterodactyl into your head."

"Well, then, the bones?"

"First one out of an Irish stew. Second one vamped up for the
occasion. If you are clever and know your business you can fake a bone
as easily as you can a photograph."

I began to feel uneasy. Perhaps, after all, I had been premature in my
acquiescence. Then I had a sudden happy thought.

"Will you come to the meeting?" I asked.

Tarp Henry looked thoughtful.

"He is not a popular person, the genial Challenger," said he. "A lot
of people have accounts to settle with him. I should say he is about
the best-hated man in London. If the medical students turn out there
will be no end of a rag. I don't want to get into a bear-garden."

"You might at least do him the justice to hear him state his own case."

"Well, perhaps it's only fair. All right. I'm your man for the
evening."

When we arrived at the hall we found a much greater concourse than I
had expected. A line of electric broughams discharged their little
cargoes of white-bearded professors, while the dark stream of humbler
pedestrians