Before I proceed any further, common decency requires me to reassure
my readers concerning my intentions, which, Heaven knows, are far from
flippant.
To separate fact from fancy has always been difficult for me, but now
that I have had the honor to be chosen secretary of the Zoological
Gardens in Bronx Park, I realize keenly that unless I give up writing
fiction nobody will believe what I write about science. Therefore it
is to a serious and unimaginative public that I shall hereafter
address myself; and I do it in the modest confidence that I shall
neither be distrusted nor doubted, although unfortunately I still
write in that irrational style which suggests covert frivolity, and
for which I am undergoing a course of treatment in English literature
at Columbia College. Now, having promised to avoid originality and
confine myself to facts, I shall tell what I have to tell concerning
the dingue, the mammoth, and--something else.
For some weeks it had been rumored that Professor Farrago, president
of the Bronx Park Zoological Society, would resign, to accept an
enormous salary as manager of Barnum & Bailey's circus. He was now
with the circus in London, and had promised to cable his decision
before the day was over.
I hoped he would decide to remain with us. I was his secretary and
particular favorite, and I viewed, without enthusiasm, the advent of a
new president, who might shake us all out of our congenial and
carefully excavated ruts. However, it was plain that the trustees of
the society expected the resignation of Professor Farrago, for they
had been in secret session all day, considering the names of possible
candidates to fill Professor Farrago's large, old-fashioned shoes.
These preparations worried me, for I could scarcely expect another
chief as kind and considerate as Professor Leonidas Farrago.
That afternoon in June I left my office in the Administration Building
in Bronx Park and strolled out under the trees for a breath of air.
But the heat of the sun soon drove me to seek shelter under a little
square arbor, a shady retreat covered with purple wistaria and
honeysuckle. As I entered the arbor I noticed that there were three
other people seated there--an elderly lady with masculine features and
short hair, a younger lady sitting beside her, and, farther away, a
rough-looking young man reading a book.
For a moment I had an indistinct impression of having met the elder
lady somewhere, and under circumstances not entirely agreeable, but
beyond a stony and indifferent glance she paid no attention to me. As
for the younger lady, she did not look at me at all. She was very
young, with pretty eyes, a mass of silky brown hair, and a skin as
fresh as a rose which had just been rained on.
With that delicacy peculiar to lonely scientific bachelors, I modestly
sat down beside the rough young man, although there was more room
beside the younger lady. "Some lazy loafer reading a penny dreadful,"
I thought, glancing at him, then at the title of his book. Hearing me
beside him, he turned around and blinked over his shabby shoulder, and
the movement uncovered the page he had been silently conning. The
volume in his hands was Darwin's famous monograph on the monodactyl.
He noticed the astonishment on my face and smiled uneasily, shifting
the short clay pipe in his mouth.
"I guess," he observed, "that this here book is too much for me,
mister."
"It's rather technical," I replied, smiling.
"Yes," he said, in vague admiration; "it's fierce, ain't it?"
After a silence I asked him if he would tell me why he had chosen
Darwin as a literary pastime.
"Well," he said, placidly, "I was tryin' to read about annermals, but
I'm up against a word-slinger this time all right. Now here's a
gum-twister," and he painfully spelled out m-o-n-o-d-a-c-t-y-l,
breathing hard all the while.
"Monodactyl," I said, "means a single-toed creature."
He turned the page with alacrity. "Is that the beast he's talkin'
about?" he asked.
The illustration he pointed out was a wood-cut representing Darwin's
reconstruction of the dingue from the fossil bones in the British
Museum. It was a well-executed wood-cut, showing a dingue in the
foreground and, to give scale, a mammoth in the middle distance.
"Yes," I replied, "that is the dingue."
"I've seen one," he observed, calmly.
I smiled and explained that the dingue had been extinct for some
thousands of years.
"Oh, I guess not," he replied, with cool optimism. Then he placed a
grimy forefinger on the mammoth.
"I've seen them things, too," he remarked.
Again I patiently pointed out his error, and suggested that he
referred to the elephant.
"Elephant be blowed!" he replied, scornfully. "I guess I know what I
seen. An' I seen that there thing you call a dingue, too."
Not wishing to prolong a futile discussion, I remained silent. After a
moment he wheeled around, removing his pipe from his hard mouth.
"Did you ever hear tell of Graham's Glacier?" he demanded.
"Certainly," I replied, astonished; "it's the southernmost glacier in
British America."
"Right," he said. "And did you ever hear tell of the Hudson Mountings,
mister?"
"Yes," I replied.
"What's behind 'em?" he snapped out.
"Nobody knows," I answered. "They are considered impassable."
"They ain't, though," he said, doggedly; "I've been behind 'em."
"Really!" I replied, tiring of his yarn.
"Ya-as, reely," he repeated, sullenly. Then he began to fumble and
search through the pages of his book until he found what he wanted.
"Mister," he said, "jest read that out loud, please."
The passage he indicated was the famous chapter beginning:
"Is the mammoth extinct? Is the dingue extinct? Probably. And
yet the aborigines of British America maintain the contrary.
Probably both the mammoth and the dingue are extinct; but
until expeditions have penetrated and explored not only the
unknown region in Alaska but also that hidden table-land
beyond the Graham Glacier and the Hudson Mountains, it will
not be possible to definitely announce the total extinction of
either the mammoth or the dingue."
When I had read it, slowly, for his benefit, he brought his hand down
smartly on one knee and nodded rapidly.
"Mister," he said, "that gent knows a thing or two, and don't you
forgit it!" Then he demanded, abruptly, how I knew he hadn't been
behind the Graham Glacier.