“I can’t permit on to risk your life in this mad way,” he blurted; “any moment he might round on you, and then they’d pinch me for manslaughter.  Here is your pound, madam; go, and thank God you have been permitted to live through this fearful experience.”  He paid with the grand air of a hero of melodrama.  His manner was so impressive it almost restored confidence, but Mahdi, the monster, remained crouched at the back of his cage, his face hidden in the straw, and nothing would induce him to come out till closing time.

When the last patron was gone, and the doors were closed, Professor Thunder approached Nickie.

“Well, my friend, you’re a pretty cheap kind of baa-lamb for a Missin’ Link, I must say,” he said haughtily.  “Why in the devil did you allow the woman to make such a holy show of you?”

“What was a man to do?” answered Nickie.

“A Missin’ Link that knew his business would have scared her out of her rags.  By Heavings, man, you are no artist—­you will never be an artist.”

“You couldn’t scare that woman with a den of lions and an old-time German dragon, Professor.”

“Bosh!  Rot!  My last Missin’ Link would have had her in fits, sir.”

“Allow me to know, please.”

“What do you know about her in pertickler, fellow?”

“Well, it’s ten years now since I ran away from her, Professor, but I ought to know something about her.  She’s my first error of judgment.  She’s my wife!”

CHAPTER VIII.

The link goes missing.

The Missing Link was recognised by patrons of Thunder’s Museum of Marvels as no ordinary animal.  The Professor’s show being conducted in a small shop, and owing nothing of its popularity to expensive advertisments in the “Amusements” columns, received no recognition from the press, consequently fame on a large scale did not come to Professor Thunder.  Nevertheless the Museum of Marvels enjoyed a reputation in humble circles, and here Mahdi was talked of, and accepted without a question, as an astonishing vindication of the Darwinian hypothesis about which the Professor discoursed so fluently in his three minutes’ lecture before the cage.  It had only taken Nicholas Crips two weeks to assert himself, and already he had introduced many novelties into the recognised “business” for Missing Links.

Occasionally a too-inquisitive visitor with a taste for natural history became obtrusive and sought close investigation.  It was part of Nickie’s duty to fill such visitors with a proper respect for Missing Links, but ninety-nine out of every hundred accepted Mahdi in good faith.  It is an axiom in the show business that the people who can’t be deceived are so few that they are not worth considering.

It was a hot day, life in the cage was very oppressive.  Nickie the Kid was painfully thirsty.  Probably no Missing Link since the day when man began to emerge from the monkey had ever been so sorely afflicted with the craving for alcoholic stimulants.