“I haven’t a doubt,” said Doctor Livingstone, “that monkeys listening to men and women talking think they are only jabbering.”

“They’re not far from wrong in most cases if they do,” said Doctor Johnson, who up to this time had been merely an interested listener.  “I’ve thought that many a time myself.”

“Which is perhaps, in a slight degree, a confirmation of my theory,” put in Darwin.  “If Doctor Johnson’s mind runs in the same channels that the monkey’s mind runs in, why may we not say that Doctor Johnson, being a man, has certain qualities of the monkey, and is therefore, in a sense, of the same strain?”

“You may say what you please,” retorted Johnson, wrathfully, “but I’ll make you prove what you say about me.”

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” said Doctor Livingstone, in a peace-making spirit.  “It would not be a pleasant task for you, compelling our friend to prove you descended from the ape.  I should think you’d prefer to make him leave it unproved.”

“Have monkeys Boswells?” queried Thackeray.

“I don’t know anything about ’em,” said Johnson, petulantly.

“No more do I,” said Darwin, “and I didn’t mean to be offensive, my dear Johnson.  If I claim Simian ancestry for you, I claim it equally for myself.”

“Well, I’m no snob,” said Johnson, unmollified.  “If you want to brag about your ancestors, do it.  Leave mine alone.  Stick to your own genealogical orchard.”

“Well, I believe fully that we are all descended from the ape,” said Munchausen.  “There isn’t any doubt in my mind that before the flood all men had tails.  Noah had a tail.  Shem, Ham, and Japheth had tails.  It’s perfectly reasonable to believe it.  The Ark in a sense proved it.  It would have been almost impossible for Noah and his sons to construct the Ark in the time they did with the assistance of only two hands apiece.  Think, however, of how fast they could work with the assistance of that third arm.  Noah could hammer a clapboard on to the Ark with two hands while grasping a saw and cutting a new board or planing it off with his tail.  So with the others.  We all know how much a third hand would help us at times.”

“But how do you account for its disappearance?” put in Doctor Livingstone.  “Is it likely they would dispense with such a useful adjunct?”

“No, it isn’t; but there are various ways of accounting for its loss,” said Munchausen.  “They may have overworked it building the Ark; Shem, Ham, or Japheth may have had his caught in the door of the Ark and cut off in the hurry of the departure; plenty of things may have happened to eliminate it.  Men lose their hair and their teeth; why might not a man lose a tail?  Scientists say that coming generations far in the future will be toothless and bald.  Why may it not be that through causes unknown to us we are similarly deprived of something our forefathers had?”

“The only reason for man’s losing his hair is that he wears a hat all the time,” said Livingstone.  “The Derby hat is the enemy of hair.  It is hot, and dries up the scalp.  You might as well try to raise watermelons in the Desert of Sahara as to try to raise hair under the modern hat.  In fact, the modern hat is a furnace.”