“Let him go.” said the Missing Link, vindictively.  “He won’t come back, He’s had all the damages he wants.”

But he did come back.  Ivo returned in a quarter of an hour and he brought a policeman with him, and on their heels came quite a crowd, Professor Thunder, with business-like precision, charged a shilling a head to all seeking’ admission.

“There he is!” cried Hobbs, “There he is!” He pointed to the Missing Link growling viciously and baring alarming fangs at the back of his cage.  “I give him in charge for grievous assault and attempted murder.”

“Come, what’s all this, me friend?” asked Constable Dunne, addressing the Professor.

Hobbs had evidently had a few more beers to restore his faculties.  He was now courageous enough, but vague in his mind and unsteady on his legs.

“The man irritated my Missing Link, and the animal attacked him, as he deserved,” said the celebrated showman.

“Animal be blowed!” yelled Hobbs.  “He’s ’a man, and I give him in charge.”

“Nonsense!” laughed the Professor; “The fellow’s drunk!”

Constable Dunne peered at the Missing Link through the cage, and that intelligent animal never looked more malignant.

“A man” said the officer, dubiously; “sure, he ain’t lookin’ it.”

“Arrest him!” said Ivo Hobbs.

“Devil a wan o’ me,” answered Dunne.  “You’d better proceed by summons, me man.  ’Tain’t me juty to arrist monkeys, an ‘twould not be becomin’ t’ the’ dignity iv an officer iv th’ law, anyway, t’ be seen draggin’ a baste iv thim proportions through the street.”

Mr. Hobbs protested indignantly, and beerily, but the constable explained that according to a strict reading of the Act, dogs were not liable to arrest, “and in the oye iv th’ law,” he said, “monkeys is dogs.”  Eventually, Ivo Hobbs went away in Constable Dunne’s company to take out a summons.  The policeman endeavoured to persuade him to summon Professor Thunder, as the Missing Link’s next of kin, but Hobbs stood drunkenly to his belief that the monkey was a man, and so the summons was made out against Mahdi, and was solemnly delivered, citing the Missing Link to appear at the Waddy Police Court on the following morning at 10 o’clock.

“Here’s a pickle,” growled the proprietor of the world-famous Museum of Marvels.

The Missing Link scratched his head over the document.  “I’m nothing of a lawyer,” he said, “but I’ve had a good deal of experience of police courts, and never knew a monkey to be proceeded against for assault—­in fact, nothing lower in the animal kingdom than a Chinaman is amenable to the law.”

As a result of a long conference, Professor Thunder went out that evening and cultivated the acquaintance of John Lidlow, J.P.  John Lidlow, Esq., J.P., was the local butcher, and Professor Thunder found him a very companionable man with an amiable weakness for raw whiskey.  Affectionately they made a night of it, and in the morning they had a mutual pick-me-up.  The pick-me-up was concocted of knock-me-down rum and colonial beer, and ran into several editions.