MR. STRINGER COMES TO BREAKFAST
It was easy to see that Gran'pa's reference to Brooklands could mean
one of only two things--motoring or aeroplaning. But I never expected
what actually followed.
The old man--or should I say the young one?--came home one evening in a
state of feverish excitement.
"I've been flying, George!" he announced buoyantly.
"Skylarking?" I asked, "or really leaving the earth for the air?"
"Flying!" he emphasized, flapping his hands and arms about. "This
afternoon I went to Bournemouth and back . . . for a little trial spin."
"A trial spin?" I echoed, wondering what bigger project he had in view.
He nodded and drew in a great breath.
It was spring, and the windows were open, and the air was like wine.
Gran'pa seemed to be half intoxicated.
"By the Lord Harry!" he exclaimed. "It's the greatest thing I've
done. We left Brooklands at two sharp and were back at a quarter to
five--with two loops and a nose-dive _en route_. I've fixed up another
jaunt on Sunday--with you and Molly. And next week I'm popping over
to Rome and back. If the journey's satisfactory, I intend buying the
machine."
"Doing what?" I gasped.
His eyes twinkled as he watched Molly and me, and with an exaggerated
nonchalance, he lit his pipe and sat down on the edge of the
dining-room table--the very embodiment of a vigorous, middle-aged man,
at least fifty years younger than himself. . . .
"I've a specification here, somewhere," he said, fumbling in his breast
pocket, and presently drawing out a scrap of paper. "Vickers-Vimy
Rolls-Royce. The most reliable combination in the world, George, . . .
Just read that through and tell me what you think of it."
I read through a specification which might have been Yiddish, so little
did it enlighten me.
"It looks as if it will cost a fortune," I observed.
"Not at all! In fact, I'm getting three brand new ones."
I tried to pass some comment on this amazing man's new outbreak, but
could not. I was literally tongue-tied. It was the most stupendous
exhibition of idiocy I had ever encountered. One might conceivably buy
three motor cars; but, three aeroplanes . . . !
"What in heaven's name do you intend doing with them?" I managed to say
at last. "Is it to be the nucleus of a new Air Force?"
"No! Just a little private venture--for the public good!"
"D'you mean there's a machine for each of us?" I asked, with a feeble
attempt at humor.
"If you like to put it that way, George. . . ."
It was very evident that he had some tremendous scheme afoot, and the
tantalizing air of secrecy he maintained rather annoyed me.
"Why be so secretive?" I asked. "Surely you can tell us all exactly
what you intend doing."
He blew out a cloud of smoke and sat there as unruffled as a sphinx.
"Ever thought of foreign travel?" he queried, mildly.
"I have. We all have! But certainly not by aeroplane."
"Ah! You're still very conservative, George. You should move with the
times. You don't think that, now I've got my youth back, I'm going to
be content with fussy old steamers and railway trains, do you? I want
to fly--_soar!_--get above the world and look down on it. Besides," he
added slyly, "there aren't any trains where I'm going. . . ."
I knew that he wanted me to fire a volley of questions at him. But I
didn't! I sat and waited.
So did Gran'pa.
Presently he said:
"You've read Robert Louis Stevenson, George?"
"I have!"
"D'you like treasure hunting yarns?"
"I do!"
"But you don't think there's much scope for that sort of thing
nowadays?"
"I don't think there ever was--except in books," I answered, peevishly.
"You're a frightful sceptic, George. It's through living in London all
your life. A dull, blasé place! . . . Lot of noise and bustle--and
talk--but nothing ever _happens_!"
He puffed away at his pipe for a few moments, and then resumed, with
the air of some politician portraying a world which needs reforming:
"All that's got to be changed. Humanity in the mass moves very slowly.
If you want things done, you must rely on the individual who can elbow
his way out of the rut." He gazed at me with inspiration in his eyes.
"George," he said quietly. "I believe I'm one of those individuals.
Already, I'm the first man to travel backwards through life. There was
that convict they experimented on in America, of course, but one never
heard any more of him. Possibly he died. In any case he was only sixty
or so. _I_ was ninety-five. . . ."
"Was . . . ?" I murmured.
He chuckled.
"How old am I now?" He stood up and smote his chest. "How old do I look
and feel?"
"About forty-five, I should say."
"Not a day older! Not a day. . . . Well, that's the first step away
from the rut. Then there's this--the greatest of all. Treasure hunting
in aeroplanes!"
"Where? And _what_?" I asked, involuntarily--knowing full well that he
was gloating over my curiosity.
He waited awhile before he continued.
Then he suddenly disclosed his scheme in all its fascinating glory. It
staggered me--at first by its utter absurdity; then by its alarming
possibility; and, finally, by its sheer plausibility. It was gigantic,
gruesome, grotesque; and yet, to hear Gran'pa talk, it was so
transparently simple that it made me wonder why no one had thought of
it before.
"Ever since these new glands have been in full working order," he said,
"I can't help feeling that others ought to be given an opportunity of
regaining their youth. There must be hundreds of old men like myself
who are still looking backwards in the way I used to: Ah! if only I had
my life to live over again! It's the saddest, the most wistful cry in
the world, George--that 'might-have-been!' You can't appreciate it at
your age, with your eyes on the future. But picture yourself when you
are seventy--seventy-five--eighty--always gazing backwards. There's no
tragedy in life until you're old--and then it's the eternal tragedy of
that might-have-been! I've lived through it all. I know. . . . The time
I must have spent just sitting . . . and thinking. . . . Always the
same refrain. Might have been! . . . Might have been! . . ."
His gaze was directed towards the fire now--that strange
picture-factory of the past and the future--and I could see that he was
very deeply moved.
"When I spoke of treasure hunting just now you probably thought of
hidden chests of jewels and coins, of tattered and torn scraps of paper
with complicated directions and cabalistic signs written on them--all
that paraphernalia of fictitious adventure. . . . As if gold were the
most important thing in life!"
"It's handy at times," I commented.
"Would my fortune be of any value to me if I were dead?"
"No! . . . I believe that it serves no useful purpose in the next
world."
He chuckled to himself. "So you come to the basic fact that the
greatest 'treasure' I've found so far has been . . ."
"By Jove!" I exclaimed. "You mean _Glands_!"
"I do! I'm going gland-hunting!"
He allowed time for the announcement to penetrate into my startled
brain.
". . . Gorillas?" I asked, at last.
"Yes . . . !"
"It's absurd! You couldn't get enough of them to do any good. You might
shoot half-a-dozen in a whole year, and . . ."
"Who said 'shoot'? I want them _alive_, man, not dead!"
"Have you ever read anything about gorillas?" I asked, quietly.
"A great deal during the last few weeks. They're easily the most
ferocious and terrifying beasts in the world. Du Chaillu says that the
gorilla is the monarch of the African forest--that no other animal on
earth dare face it when it is enraged. Practically every game hunter of
any standing agrees on this point. Even a man armed with a modern gun
runs grave risks in an encounter with a gorilla. If the bullet misses
. . ." Gran'pa shrugged his shoulders.
"And yet you stand there," I said, "and tell me that you intend
_capturing_ them!"
"That's the whole charm of the thing. We have to devise some method,
George, of not only getting them in large quantities, but of getting
them alive and well. Every gorilla killed will represent the death
sentence of some human being--the loss of a new lease of life. That's a
terrible thought, George. It means a very great responsibility. . . ."
"Nonsense! People have been dying from old age ever since the world
began."
"So they have from lock-jaw, and consumption, and malaria, and a
thousand other complaints."
"That's no comparison. Death from old age is inevitable and . . ."
"Is it? What about me?"
"But sooner or later . . ." I said bluntly.
"Yes! I expect I shall . . . sooner or later. But the chief thing is
that I haven't yet. I _might_ have died of diphtheria nearly fifty
years ago; but medical science saved me. I might have died of malaria
once--but for quinine. Everyone who has reached my age--or only half
of it--has probably been saved at least once in his life. But it's
only a probability, George. In the majority of cases one cannot tell
for certain. With these glands, however, it is different. I know that
I've been rescued from death as surely as when a life buoy is thrown to
a drowning man. When the liner sinks in mid-ocean it's the number of
floatable commodities that determine the number of the saved. A man who
destroyed a life buoy at such a moment would be guilty of murder. And
that's precisely the attitude we must adopt towards this gorilla hunt.
A gorilla shot dead in the heart of Africa is a man murdered somewhere
at home. We _must_ catch them alive. . . ."
"I suppose it's possible," I said. "Otherwise, how did they get our
friend Alfred--and the one in the Zoo?"
"Naturally it's been done before, but not on a big enough scale. I very
much doubt if more than fifty or sixty of them have been captured alive
during the last century. That's much too slow for us. We shall want
them . . . in hundreds a month, at least. . . ."
"Sort of round them up, like rebels," I suggested.
"Flippantly put," he answered, dryly, "but substantially correct."
The insight required for such a gigantic undertaking was so utterly
beyond me that I simply could not treat the matter seriously.
"I don't quite understand the aeroplane part," I said. "Do you intend
flying over the jungle and lassoing them--or, what?"
"Don't be feeble, George. The aeroplanes are merely for _getting_
there. Where it took weeks for other men to travel a hundred miles
through the African jungle, we shall manage it in as many hours. We
could leave Gaboon at eight in the morning, say . . ."
"Where on earth is Gaboon?"
He treated the interruption--which was actually inspired by a genuine
thirst for knowledge--with contempt.
"You'll find it on any map of Equatorial Africa," he answered quietly.
"As I was saying, we could leave there at eight in the morning and be
in the heart of the gorilla country by ten o'clock at the latest. I
intend making Gaboon the headquarters."
It is extraordinary that I was not in the least astounded at the easy
and casual way in which Gran'pa was unfolding his plan of campaign.
My initial amazement once over, it seemed the most natural thing
in the world for a man to take gorilla-hunting aeroplane trips in
Africa. It was as if Gran'pa had merely said: "We'll make New York our
headquarters and motor over to West Point, Atlantic City and other
spots of interest."
For over two hours he sat there talking, joking, speculating; and every
query I raised was demolished swiftly and easily. There was little
doubt whatever that he had studied the matter very thoroughly. He knew
the country, the climate, the facilities for obtaining guides, the
habits and haunts of the gorillas, and even their "language."
When I showed symptoms of unbelief at this last item of knowledge, he
was evidently pleased with himself.
"I've been to Garner's works for that," he said. "You must remember
Garner. He was the explorer who for nearly four months lived in a wire
cage in one of the African forests. He says that both the chimpanzee
and the gorilla have a definite language of twenty words or more. They
have vocal expressions for 'food,' 'good'--in a sort of 'Thank-you!'
sense--'discomfort,' 'drink,' 'illness,' and even 'death.' Take this
for instance."
Gran'pa threw back his head, drew in his breath and imitated a weird
animal cry, as near as possible to the exclamation:
"_Ugh--h--h. . . ._" (trailing off in a long drawn aspirate sound).
"That," he explained, "means 'food.'"
He made a few more noises, preceded by facial contortions and deep
breathing exercises--which seemed to be the necessary preliminary to
this new ape language.
"There's a sound, too," he explained, "by means of which they call one
another. It goes like this: '?..?..?!'" (My powers of representation
fail me.)
"That may come in quite handy, George. Don't you think so?"
"Very!" I said. "If you have it right."
"I've tried it!" he laughed.
"On a live ape, d'you mean? When?"
"At the Zoo!"
"But . . ."
"I tried it on the chimpanzee--and it worked! At first, he looked as
if he knew quite well what it meant, but wouldn't bother to reply. So
I repeated it twice! He hesitated. Then he got up, came over to me and
commenced tugging at my sleeve and making peculiar little noises in the
back of his throat. Most astonishing thing I've ever seen, George. The
keeper--quite an intelligent fellow--was flabbergasted. Said he'd never
seen anything like it before."
"You mean you actually went in the cage?"
"Yes! . . . I also gave the 'alarm' signal--and what do you think the
brute did!"
"Heaven above knows!"
"Rushed into the corner of the cage and hid himself under the
straw. . . ."
I was impressed. Whatever other little weaknesses Gran'pa had, he never
lied, and never exaggerated.
Already, I was beginning to feel sorry for these Monarchs of the
African Forests. What chance had the poor wretches against a man like
this, with all the resources of civilization behind him? And yet . . .
"Granting all these possibilities," I said. "Supposing we do get to
Gaboon with our aeroplanes and our monkey-language system in full
working order. And supposing we do actually capture a few hundred of
the brutes alive. What then? You can't bring them back to headquarters
by aeroplane. . . ."
"Why not?"
"Oh . . . I don't know! It sounds so utterly damned silly."
"Not half so silly and impossible as some of the everyday exploits in
the war. It's child play compared with 'planing through a tornado of
bursting shells, or fighting battles a couple of miles up."
"I suppose it is. . . ."
Every argument I produced as to the unreasonableness of his schemes was
squashed in an instant.
"Well," I said, at last. "We have our apes--by the hundred. What then?
It's their glands you want; the brutes themselves, as far as you're
concerned, are merely perambulating depositories for the Elixir of
Life. You keep them alive simply to keep their glands alive. A dead
gland is useless, and . . ."
"Wait a moment, young man! Ever heard of cold storage?"
"It's the curse of the modern mutton trade," I observed.
"Possibly! Many scientists, however, consider it possible to keep
the thyroid gland active for at least three or four days after its
removal--if the thing is packed in ice. That'll help a great deal. I
intend shipping the apes to Walfisch Bay, and then taking the glands
by 'plane to a convenient spot in the Kalahari Desert--one of the
healthiest places in the world. It is there that we shall establish the
great Hospital for the Rejuvenation of the Aged."
I grew reckless in my concessions to the plausibility of the scheme.
"So far so good," I said. "We've accomplished even this. But what
about the patients? How many old men do you seriously think are going
to risk their lives by setting out on such an insane quest for youth?
There aren't a dozen men in England to-day who'd do anything half as
wild--especially old men of seventy--or eighty. All they want then is
peace--peace in which to end their days. That's the great cry of the
aged. And therein lies the final weakness of the whole thing, Gran'pa.
The idea is good, the plot is excellent, the adventure thrilling, the
. . ."
"Don't you worry, George!" he cried. "That's where, as a last
resource, the Press Campaign comes in. If necessary, I shall boom
this rejuvenescence of mine as nothing on earth has ever been boomed
before. I am willing to be photographed, interviewed, filmed, and
leading-articled until we're simply swamped with applications.
You don't understand human nature. The will to live comes before
everything. If there is no response from Englishmen I shall appeal to
America, although I would rather not experiment on my own countrymen
until I've gained more practical knowledge."
So the last stronghold of my long line of objections was razed to
the ground, and the discussion of this momentous fight against death
drew to a close. Was there ever a madder and more useless scheme than
this wretched monkey hunting for the aged? Like most young men of
this generation, I had very little respect for mere age. Everywhere
one turned one saw old men in charge of the world--men of fifty and
upwards. They monopolized all the best positions in the Government,
in business, in literature, in law, on town councils, in the Civil
Service, and in the army. They kept out the young and ambitious by
sneering at their inexperience and hot-headedness; they scoffed at
their love affairs; they even tried to arrange their marriages;
and--most iniquitous of all--they arranged wars in which the young
fought and died through the folly and greed of their forebears.
If only one could reduce the life span instead of lengthening it--bring
it down to fifty, say! If only one could speed up life by removing the
brake of the ancient, the doddering and the incapable, who hung on to
their jobs to the eternal detriment of the young! If only one could
make life fuller and quicker--instead of emptier and slower . . .
Was it right for me to sacrifice the men of my own generation in this
manner? Was it dignified? Was it noble?
I thought the matter out carefully. And in the end I came to the
conclusion that it simply did not matter. After all, the most Gran'pa
and I could hope to do was to save a few hundred of the old criminals.
If we caught all the gorillas in the whole of Africa, it would be no
more than a mere drop in the ocean. At the Continental spas alone what
does one see? The middle-aged, the old and ancient, crawling about in
useless thousands. . . . All the monkeys in the world couldn't save
more than a tenth per cent. of them.
And yet the thing might grow. There were other animals, perhaps, which
might contribute. Already, the goat provided valuable thyroid extracts.
Why not still others? Suppose the system was extended, and thousands
of animals were bred solely for their glandular possibilities! In the
course of a lifetime one man probably consumes dozens of sheep, oxen
and pigs, and yet in some mysterious way arrangements have been made
for a constant supply of these beasts. Why then should provision not
be made for, say, a couple of pairs of glands per life. If man wants a
commodity he usually gets it--sooner or later. He wanted tame dog, and
he got it. To-day, there must be millions of them on the earth. Science
might be clever enough some day to breed special gland-bearing animals,
whose prime function would be the salvation of the aged. It might take
generations or centuries to accomplish the miracle, but ultimately . . .
The thought staggered me--and I returned to my monkeys. If we didn't
start the business someone else would.
And so, at last, I gave way.
"To blazes with the Civil Service. . . ." I thought. "Why should I
moulder in an office when there are so many more interesting places in
the world?"
I found a map of Africa and discovered Gaboon and its principal port of
Libreville. It might have looked an outlandish spot, but at any rate it
looked exciting. I liked the shape of the river mouth; the country to
the east; the proximity of the Equator, which ran only a few miles to
the south; and the way the great blue sea spread out to the west.
I found Walfisch Bay and the Kalahari. And then I looked at the
tiny patch of dirt which we call England. I thought of the tedious
train journey from north to south of this island, and I measured the
distance on the same scale map of Africa. As I did so the immensity of
our task suddenly smote me in all its glory. It was uncanny to think
that all those thousands of miles away lay the great African jungles;
that at this precise moment, while I was peacefully smoking my pipe
in Richmond, there was another land in which the gorilla and the
chimpanzee roamed and fought and died; and that presently we should
commence invading their fastnesses and enlisting their services in aid
of the aged and decrepit of our own race.
I tried to picture the place--the tall trees, the ghostly undergrowth,
the sodden marshes, the hot, dripping climate, the wicked and cunning
little eyes which would watch us from the tree tops and the bushes as
we went on our errand of mercy. I tried to visualize native villages
and long, meandering rivers infested with crocodiles and hippopotami. I
feebly attempted to imagine what a herd of wild elephants looked like.
Did the porcupine erect its quills when angry and the lion slink away
at the sight and smell of you? What were the prevalent diseases in this
new land of hope and glory? Would the natives welcome us, or pursue
and torture and devour us? How much cheap jewelry and beads should we
require to bribe them to help us? Did they bother about such things
now, or had they moved with the times and installed picture palaces and
gramophones in their chief villages?
Even when I retired to bed that night I still went on speculating. My
poor, civilized brain was troubled with vague, terrorizing dreams,
manufactured no doubt from all I had ever read and heard of the
grotesque, the hideous and the cruel. I was pursued by cannibals,
bitten by mosquitoes, mauled by tigers, nibbled by swarms of ants,
and trampled on by wild elephants. But I never saw a single gorilla!
Monkeys I saw galore--little black-faced chattering creatures, hanging
by their tails from branches high overhead; also a horrid dog-faced
baboon pursuing Gran'pa (bearded and old and withered again!) down a
narrow pathway which led to the sea. But not a single gorilla! It was
very astonishing. Was it an omen, I wondered?
I got up in the morning feeling that I knew Africa through and through.
But when I looked out of the bedroom window the illusion was dispelled
immediately. I saw the garden in all its spring glory--the daffodils
and tulips, the plum blossoms, the green carpet of the lawn sprinkled
with white daisies, and then--Gran'pa, walking and talking very
earnestly in the sunshine with a little, ferocious-looking man in a
coat with a fur collar.
I watched them curiously, until they disappeared round the bend of the
path, and then I commenced dressing.
When I arrived downstairs Gran'pa and his companion were in the
dining-room chattering away like a couple of sparrows.
"Ah, George!" cried Gran'pa. "I quite forgot to tell you about Mr.
Stringer. He's come down from Scotland by the night train. I wrote and
asked him to make straight for Airesdale Avenue the moment he arrived,
and have breakfast with us. I wanted you to see him before you went to
town this morning. We're spending the day at the Zoo, and then going on
to Bristol this evening to see Boswell's Menagerie there."
I extended my hand towards Mr. Stringer, wondering what on earth it
was all about, and, as his fingers closed on mine and our eyes met, a
peculiar thrill seemed to travel up my arm and backbone, culminating
in a sudden tremor in the base of my skull. When he dropped my hand,
however, he still kept his eyes fixed on me for a second or two. Never
in all my life had I felt such a burning, penetrating gaze. It reached
out like a ray of light, half-dazzled me, and probed into every nook
and corner of my brain.
Suddenly, that unearthly sensation of being a frozen microbe under a
microscope was gone again, and I felt the blood come pumping back into
my ears--_thud!_ . . . _thud!_ . . .
"_You_ noticed it, George?" cried Gran'pa.
"I . . . er . . . certainly . . . noticed something," I stammered.
"Good! Mr. Stringer possesses one of the least known but most potent
forces in nature. He calls himself a hypnotist and mental healer, but
I prefer the older term, Animal Magnetism. I have great hopes of Mr.
Stringer--when we reach Africa. . . ."