“I was only condemned on hearsay evidence, anyhow,” said Adam, ruefully.

“Nonsense; you were caught red-handed,” said Noah; “my grandfather told me so.  And now that I’ve got a chance to slip in a word edgewise, I’d like mightily to have you explain your statement, Mr. Barnum, that I am responsible for your errors.  That is a serious charge to bring against a man of my reputation.”

“I mean simply this:  that to make a show interesting,” said Mr. Barnum, “a man has got to provide interesting materials, that’s all.  I do not mean to say a word that is in any way derogatory to your morality.  You were a surprisingly good man for a sea-captain, and with the exception of that one occasion when you—­ah—­you allowed yourself to be stranded on the bar, if I may so put it, I know of nothing to be said against you as a moral, temperate person.”

“That was only an accident,” said Noah, reddening.  “You can’t expect a man six hundred odd years of age—­”

“Certainly not,” said Raleigh, soothingly, “and nobody thinks less of you for it.  Considering how you must have hated the sight of water, the wonder of it is that it didn’t become a fixed habit.  Let us hear what it is that Mr. Barnum does criticise in you.”

“His taste, that’s all,” said Mr. Barnum.  “I contend that, compared to the animals he might have had, the ones he did have were as ant-hills to Alps.  There were more magnificent zoos allowed to die out through Noah’s lack of judgment than one likes to think of.  Take the Proterosaurus, for instance.  Where on earth do we find his equal to-day?”

“You ought to be mighty glad you can’t find one like him,” put in Adam.  “If you’d spent a week in the Garden of Eden with me, with lizards eight feet long dropping out of the trees on to your lap while you were trying to take a Sunday-afternoon nap, you’d be willing to dispense with things of that sort for the balance of your natural life.  If you want to get an idea of that experience let somebody drop a calf on you some afternoon.”

“I am not saying anything about that,” returned Barnum.  “It would be unpleasant to have an elephant drop on one after the fashion of which you speak, but I am glad the elephant was saved just the same.  I haven’t advocated the Proterosaurus as a Sunday-afternoon surprise, but as an attraction for a show.  I still maintain that a lizard as big as a cow would prove a lodestone, the drawing powers of which the pocket-money of the small boy would be utterly unable to resist.  Then there was the Iguanadon.  He’d have brought a fortune to the box-office—­”

“Which you’d have immediately lost,” retorted Noah, “paying rent.  When you get a reptile of his size, that reaches thirty feet up into the air when he stands on his hind-legs, the ordinary circus wagon of commerce can’t be made to hold him, and your menagerie-room has to have ceilings so high that every penny he brought to the box-office would be spent storing him.”