It was generally known that Lanfear had not long to live, and the Laboratory was hardly opened before the question of his successor in the chair of Experimental Evolution began to be a matter of public discussion.  It was conceded that whoever followed him ought to be a man of achieved reputation, some one carrying, as the French say, a considerable “baggage.”  At the same time, even Lanfear’s critics felt that he should be succeeded by a man who held his views and would continue his teaching.  This was not in itself a difficulty, for German criticism had so far been mainly negative, and there were plenty of good men who, while they questioned the permanent validity of Lanfear’s conclusions, were yet ready to accept them for their provisional usefulness.  And then there was the added inducement of the Laboratory!  The Columbia Professor of Experimental Evolution has at his disposal the most complete instrument of biological research that modern ingenuity has yet produced; and it’s not only in theology or politics que Paris vaut bien une messe! There was no trouble about finding a candidate; but the whole thing turned on Lanfear’s decision, since it was tacitly understood that, by Weyman’s wish, he was to select his successor.  And what a cry there was when he selected Galen Dredge!

Not in the scientific world, though.  The specialists were beginning to know about Dredge.  His remarkable paper on Sexual Dimorphism had been translated into several languages, and a furious polemic had broken out over it.  When a young fellow can get the big men fighting over him his future is pretty well assured.  But Dredge was only thirty-four, and some people seemed to feel that there was a kind of deflected nepotism in Lanfear’s choice.

“If he could choose Dredge he might as well have chosen his own son,” I’ve heard it said; and the irony was that Archie—­will you believe it?—­actually thought so himself!  But Lanfear had Weyman behind him, and when the end came the Faculty at once appointed Galen Dredge to the chair of Experimental Evolution.

For the first two years things went quietly, along accustomed lines.  Dredge simply continued the course which Lanfear’s death had interrupted.  He lectured well even then, with a persuasive simplicity surprising in the slow, inarticulate creature one knew him for.  But haven’t you noticed that certain personalities reveal themselves only in the more impersonal relations of life?  It’s as if they woke only to collective contacts, and the single consciousness were an unmeaning fragment to them.

If there was anything to criticize in that first part of the course, it was the avoidance of general ideas, of those brilliant rockets of conjecture that Lanfear’s students were used to seeing him fling across the darkness.  I remember once saying this to Archie, who, having recovered from his absurd disappointment, had returned to his old allegiance to Dredge.

“Oh, that’s Galen all over.  He doesn’t want to jump into the ring till he has a big swishing knock-down argument in his fist.  He’ll wait twenty years if he has to.  That’s his strength:  he’s never afraid to wait.”