hs old. He was such
a royal fellow, so brave and buoyant, that I fell in love with him.
How could a lonely man help being foolish?

An odd name had the child. It all came from the hours, when, all
danger passed, a proud and happy man sat upon a bedside and looked down
into the face of a proud and happy woman, and, at times, studied the
quality of the odd mite beside her, half hidden in the waves of pillow
and of sheet. He would look at the thing's wonderful hands, and its
wonderful pink feet, and have remarks to make. One hour he came in and
examined the creature and repeated great words from some authority:

"How many people have ever taken notice of a baby's foot, except to
admire its pinkiness and its prettiness?" said he. "And yet, to the
anatomist, it is a revelation. Take, for example, the feet of a child
of ten months, that has never walked nor stood alone. It has a power
of grasping to some extent, and is used instinctively like a hand. The
great toe has a certain independent working, like a thumb, and the
wrinkles of the sole resemble those of the palm. These markings
disappear when the pedal extremity has come to be employed for purposes
of support.

"The hands and feet of a human being are strikingly like those of the
chimpanzee in conformation, while the gorilla's resemblance to man in
these respects is even more remarkable. The higher apes have been
classified as 'quadrumana,' or 'four-handed,' because their hind feet
are hand-shaped; but this designation is improperly applied, because
the ape's posterior extremities are not really hands at all. They
merely look like hands at the first glance, whereas, in fact, they are
but feet adapted for climbing. The big toes cannot be 'opposed' to
other toes, as thumbs are to the fingers, but simply act pincer-wise,
for the purpose of grasping. Now, oddly enough, the 'infant's' feet
have this same power of grasping, pincer-fashion, and the action is
performed in precisely the same way. Advocates of evolutionary
theories take this to signify that the human foot was originally
utilized for climbing trees also, before the species was so highly
developed as it is now. Also, they assert that the fact that the art
of walking erect is learned by the child with such difficulty proves
that the race has only acquired it recently.

"There, darling," he said, "you see how it is. We have but come into
possession of a little ape! What shall we do?"

She was no