The company ate a late dinner in a room behind the show that evening.  Amiable Madame Marve had prepared an excellent meal, in which the regulation beer and boiled leg of mutton course was relieved of monotony with vegetables and dumplings.  There was soup before and pudding after, and in a burst of gratitude the Missing Link proposed the health of the Egyptian Mystic which was being drunk with enthusiasm in Chinese brandy, when suddenly a great racket arose in the yard, shouts and screams were heard from the street, and Kit See burst in upon the dinner party, his Celestial fade pale with terror, his usually benignant eyes round with apprehension.

“What’ for?  Wha’ far?” screamed the Chinaman at Professor Thunder.  “Come!  Come!  You come dam quick!  Monkey he stealem my baby.”

“Wha—­at?” yelled the Professor.

“The monkey cally baby away alonga house-top si’.”  Kit pointed to the ceiling.  He was dancing with anguish.

The Professor dashed for the caravan cage, and was back in a minute.  “It’s Ammonia,” he cried, wild with excitement.  “He’s broke loose.  He’s got the Chinaman’s baby on the roof.”

Kit See ran into the street, the Professor turned to follow, but Nickie seized him.

“Hold hard,” he said, “there’s no hurry, no hurry in the world.  Let us think this thing out.”

“No hurry!” snorted the Professor, “and that infernal gorilla waltzing round up there with a live baby?” The Professor’s tragic manner would have been the making of a cheap melodrama.

“Did you ever know Ammonia drop anything he’d once taken a good grip of?  The youngster’s safe for a while.  It strike me we can make a hit out of this.  How will it read in the Wangaroo ‘Guardian’:  ’Child stolen by a gorilla.  Rescue by Professor Thunder’s famous Missing Link’?”

Professor Thunder stopped with a gasp.  “Holy Joseph!” he said, “that’s a noble thought, my boy.  Can it be done?”

“You get out there and keep the crowd from overexerting itself.  Leave the rest to me.”

Professor Thunder dashed out by the front door.  There was already a large and vociferous crowd in the road, staring up at the gorilla, gesticulating and yelling, and people were coming running from all directions.  On the side of the road stood Kit See, weeping, and brandishing his arms helplessly in the face of this grand calamity.  Aloft, on the top of one of the chimneys, about three feet above the roof, sat the gorilla.  In one of his hind claws he held the baby’s clothing, and the youngster dangled, apparently disregarded by Ammonia, who, despite the terrors of the situation, cut a most ridiculous figure, for he was composedly sucking the milk from the baby’s bottle, keeping his vindictive eyes on the crowd the while.

“For God’s sake keep quiet,” thundered the Professor to the excited crowd.  “Do not irritate him, and all will be well.”  He dragged to the ground a heroic Cousin Jack miner who was climbing the verandah post.  “Back, man, back,” he cried, “or all is lost.”