“A marvellous performance, indeed,” said a thin, shabby, sandy man, coming forward with a notebook.  “Almost miraculous.”

“True for you, sir.” said the Professor eyeing the man suspiciously.

“Perhaps you can tell me.  Professor Thunder, what branch of the Simian family this—­this creature of yours belongs?”

“Well,” said the Professor, “he is said to be most closely connected with the gorillas.”

“Nonsense, man!  Gorilla, rubbish!  Look at that pelvis, sir, look at those arms.  That’s no more a gorilla than I am.”

“May I ask to whom I have the honour of speaking?” asked the Professor, in his coldly polite manner—­his most superior professional attitude.

“My name is Andrew McKnight, if that’s any good to you.  If that is a gorilla, sir, where are his vertebral processes, tell me that?  And how comes it that his legs are almost as long as those of man?”

The Missing Link, who had doffed his airs of civilisation, and was now crouched in the straw, began snarling at this.  It seemed almost as if Mr. McKnight’s criticism were making the poor beast angry.

“You must remember, sir, that this animal is not of any known species,” said Professor Thunder, who had a large collection of stock phrases for such discussions.  “He is in a manner a creature apart.”

“I should say so.  Would you permit me to take cerebral measurements of your so-called Missing Link?  I am interested in this matter, having opposed the Darwinian hypothesis for many years.”

Here Mahdi’s snarling became diabolical, and he leaped about in a terrifying way.

“Certainly,” said the Professor, “Certainly, Mahdi is always at the service of science.  But I warn you he is apt to be treacherous with strangers.  He almost tore the arm off Professor Fitzpoof, of Dresden, and he nearly disembowelled a doctor in Dublin in 1895.”

“Oh,” said the gentleman with the notebook, doubtingly, “in that case I had better not, perhaps.”

Mr. McKnight did not go away for some time.  He lingered, watching Mahdi with great curiosity.  He came back in the evening, too, and hung about the museum for hours.  The Professor observed him with growing resentment.  He suspected the intentions of the sandy man, and he was not wrong.

Next day, shortly after the show opened, McKnight came again, with the same notebook and the same suspicious air.  He brought five men with him, all solid men in Wildbee, one of them the local constable.  This party assembled near the cage of the Missing Link, and listened carefully while the Professor reeled off the familiar story of the taking of Mahdi.  They witnessed the stirring and entertaining dinner, and when the Professor had finished, and Mahdi had resumed his conch in the straw, McKnight stepped forward.

“And do you expect us to believe all that rubbish, Professor?” he said.

“I do,” said Professor Thunder, with dignity, “but I don’t care if you don’t.”