Professor Thunder’s Museum of Marvels was established in a shop in Bourke Street, Melbourne.  The shop window was curtained with large posters, one representing a tall man, very thin even for a skeleton, sitting at a table, tying knots in his limbs.  The other pictured a strange, hairy monster, half human, half monkey, which was labelled “Darwin’s Missing Link.”  On a kerosene case at the door stood Professor Thunder himself, appealing to the populace to pause and contemplate the “astonishin’ marvellous pictorial representations,” and assuring five small boys that these were “living, speaking likenesses” of the wonders within.  “No deception, ladies and gents, no deception!” he cried.

Professor Thunder was his own “spruicher;” his eloquence was remarkable, his voice had the carrying power of a steam whistle, and the penetrating qualities of a circular saw.  He was a quaint product of the show business, having been born in a museum and bred in an atmosphere of cheap theatricals.

“Step inside!  Step inside!  Step inside!” cried the Professor.  “There you will behold our extraordinary educational collection of Nature’s mysteries, known as ‘The Descent of Man,’ described by the nobility, the scientists, and the faculty as the most complete representation of man’s descent from the apes ever presented to an intelligent audience.  There you will behold Bonypart, the miraculous, the bone man who has mystified all the doctors and amazed millions.  There you will behold Ephraim, the enlightened pig; Madame Marve, the unrivalled seer, and last, but not least, Mahdi, the Missing Link, pronounced by travellers, medical men, and Darwinian students to be the one and only authentic and reliable Missing Link discovered by mortal man.  And the price is only sixpence.  Step up!  Step up!”

The people stepped up, and saw the living skeleton, a thin, long, melancholy man sitting on a chair, in limp tights, showing his bony knees; the educated pig, that did astonishing things at the bidding of Madame Marve; and the Descent of Man, represented by several monkeys of varying sizes, a gorilla, and the awe-inspiring Missing Link.

The cage of Mahdi, the Missing Link, was some what dark, and the terrible form of the mystery loomed in the dusk, heavy and formidable.  He was as big as a man, somewhat lank, and covered with coarse hair the colour of cocoanut matting.  This afternoon, when the early patrons entered, they found him hanging limply by one arm, like a great ungainly bat.

“The Missing Link always reposes in this manner in his native wilds,” said Madame Marve, in the chaste tones she assumed when imparting valuable instruction “but he is otherwise very human in his tastes and habits.”

“Has ’e a vote, ma’am?” asked a facetious labourer.

A stout lady prodded Mahdi with her umbrella, and he flopped on all fours on the floor of his cage, and sprang forward with a hoarse growl, reaching a great, hairy paw out of the cage.